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Rowan went back to the ward. Jocelyn was still asleep. Mum and dad were at the bedside.
As soon as Rowan entered the ward, mum and dad looked at him,a flicker of guilt in their depths. They knew they weren’t entirely blameless in Jocelyn’s deception of the Houston family and Rowan.
‘Rowan, why are your eyes red?‘ Jocelyn didn’t mean to lie. She’s just a bit stubborn. She doesn’t have bad intentions. Mum still defended Jocelyn.
‘We should wait for Jocelyn to get better and apologise to Vivian. We will treat her well and make it up to her. Mr.Rowan said, ‘She’s dead.‘ Rowan said, ‘Who died?‘ Mum and Dad were shocked. Rowan said, ‘Vivian, your youngest daughter, Jocelyn and Jocelyn’s sister, has lung
cancer!
He walked to Jocelyn’s bed and said, ‘You’re awake. Do you want to keep pretending? Is your cancer fake? You switched Vivian’s medical reports and made us kick her out of the house. She died in the hospital.‘
Dad and my little sister were in disbelief when they heard this: ‘How could Vivian die? It’s impossible.‘
Their hearts pounded like thunder in their chests, a wave of pain washing over them.
‘You also bullied her at school and let the driver wait for her at home. She had to go to school by herself before dawn.‘ Rowan said.
Everyone fell silent. Jocelyn could no longer pretend. She stood up and shouted, ‘What right does she have? She is just a bumpkin:
She was slapped.
Mr.Rowan slapped Jocelyn.
Jocelyn was shocked and cried. ‘You hit me for her. Why?‘ She was crazy.
‘She’s your sister, my daughter! If you say she’s inferior, then what am I? Ah?‘ Mr.Rowan was
angry.
Mum stayed where she was. She saw what was happening and felt everything had changed.
Watching the eldest daughter turn into a monster, she felt like everything was unreal.
Rowan took mum and dad to the morgue to see me. They realised I was dead when they saw my body. Mr.Rowan’s body bent and mum sat on the floor crying.I felt myself getting lighter.
Back home, Dad and Rowan went into the study to talk, while the mother sat alone on the sofa. She suddenly felt a splitting headache and thought of my corpse.
Her migraines, absent for a year, returned with a vengeance It made her feel dizzy. She called the maid and ordered, ‘Didn’t you used to make that herbal remedy for my headaches? It can cure the pain. Now go and cook for me!
The maid looked at her mistress and didn’t know what to say.
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Mum was angry and told her to go instead.
The maid looked scared, so she told the truth: “That prescription disappeared, and we didn’t look for it because you haven’t had a head ailment in a long time!
‘Why not go to the healer and get a new prescription?Stop dawdling!‘
‘But Mistress, Lady Vivian brought this back. We don’t know where she got it from.‘ The maid stood still after she finished speaking.
Mum’s face turned pale. She hadn’t thought that her own daughter had cured her original head,
ailment.
She cried, her heart hurting so much that she couldn’t breathe.
‘Mistress, what’s wrong?‘ The maid saw her mistress was upset and asked with worry.
Dad and brother came down after talking. Mum was still on the sofa in tears.
Mr.Rowan looked older, with more white hair.
Brother Rowan saw his parents sad faces. He didn’t comfort them too much because they owed
- me.
He also owed me for her indifference and for letting him bully her. He hated himself for that.
‘We will hold a funeral for Vivian in two days.‘ Mr.Rowan spoke in a serious tone.
He was in the study, looking at the information his son had investigated. He knew he and his wife had done wrong things, letting his daughter suffer and die alone. He was still cursing her.
He can’t accept how his daughter, who was raised well, became a bully and a cheat. They were failed parents.
My funeral was held two days later. Jocelyn didn’t want to come to offer condolences, but Dad insisted that she come to apologize to me. Maybe I would still be alive if it weren’t for her.
Jocelyn kowtowed to me reluctantly under pressure from my parents and brother.
I was disgusted that she was dirtying my path to reincarnation.
Houston came to my funeral.
He didn’t look like himself. He was bearded and dishevelled.
Houston cried when he saw me in the ice coffin.
I was already withered before I died. The mortician made me look a little like I did before I was
born.
Houston said sorry.
At the end of the funeral, my body was cremated. I knew my body would not reappear, and my soul was fading.
Houston looked up and saw me. He lunged towards me.
Rowan also seemed to sense something. He looked in the direction Houston had lunged, and he saw me disappear for the last time. A sharp pain surged in his heart, and he couldn’t help but
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burst into tears.
I didn’t look back as I saw my grandmother coming to pick me up with my favourite toy. I went back to the people who love me.
After seven days, Houston told the public he had divorced Jocelyn. Jocelyn tried to cause trouble and was thrown out. She fainted at the door of Houston’s house and was taken to hospital with brain cancer. Jocelyn was furious. She jumped off the hospital roof.
My family rushed to the hospital after hearing their eldest daughter had died. They found only bloody corpses.
The successive deaths of the two daughters of my family inevitably aroused a lot of speculation from the outside world. People said that my family had offended God.
It was the norm in upper–class society to look down on the weak and fawn over the powerful. My family immediately became the subject of gossip and ridicule in upper–class society, and everyone avoided them.
My family went downhill. Mr.Rowan’s health deteriorated, and Mrs.Rowan suffered from headaches all day long.
Rowan became the head of my family and took several years to stabilise my family group.
After marrying, he only had one daughter, Vivian. Someone asked Mrs.Rowan why she didn’t have more, so as to be safer. Mrs.Rowan replied, ‘My husband said one child is enough, more children will favour one over the other!
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