Chapter 4

My hesitation, to Mom and Dad, was an act of defiance.

Mom suddenly shrieked like a maniac.

“Stop wasting your breath on her! She just doesn’t want us to be happy! Don’t pretend! You think we don’t know you won the lottery?!”

Her words exploded like a bombshell in the crowd.

“Twenty million dollars! A full twenty million!”

“Now that you’re living comfortably, you don’t care about your family anymore, do you?!”

My heart tightened.

The fact that I’d won the lottery, I’d only confided it in messages on Maeve’s old social media account, just talking to her.

How could they know?

Dad’s sanity completely snapped. He pulled a fruit knife from his pocket, its tip glinting menacingly in the sunlight.

“If you won’t sign it yourself, then we’ll show you! We’ll draw some blood from you! Then you’ll know if this card is real or not!”

He advanced on me, his face twisted in a snarl. Mom, meanwhile, gripped my arm tightly, pinning me in place.

A gasp went through the crowd, but no one dared to step forward and intervene.

I shrieked in terror:

“What are you doing?!”

“What are we doing? Drawing your blood! We’ll drip your blood on the card and you’ll see with your own eyes how your sister comes back!”

Dad roared, raising the knife.

I watched, horrified, as the cold blade came closer and closer to my wrist.

Fear choked my throat; I could even feel the chill emanating from the blade.

From a nearby neighbor’s open window, the TV news was broadcasting.

“Latest news from the city: The prestigious Thorne Group declared official bankruptcy liquidation yesterday due to a broken capital chain. Chairman Charles Thorne absconded with funds, and his son, Kian Thorne…”

The Thornes… went bankrupt?

That arrogant, terrifying Kian Thorne, his family went bankrupt?

This news, like a flash of lightning, sliced through my muddled thoughts.

A bold and insane idea instantly formed in my mind.

“I’ll sign!”

Just as the blade was about to cut my skin, I screamed out with all my might.

Dad’s movement froze. The knife’s tip was just a millimeter from my vein.

Everyone was stunned.

Mom released my hand, a triumphant joy spreading across her face.

“See? Wouldn’t it have been easier to just do that?”

She handed me the crumpled resurrection card and a pen, like a gift.

“Hurry and write! Write your sister’s name!”

I took the card, head bowed. No one could see the expression in my eyes.

My finger, as if casually, rubbed the card.

It was thick, much thicker than ordinary cardstock.

I looked up, a compliant smile on my face, and took the pen.

Under my parents’ relieved gazes, and the collective sigh of relief from relatives and neighbors, I gripped the pen and began to write.

Each stroke was clear and forceful.

After finishing, I handed the card back to Mom.

“There.”

Mom, ecstatic, snatched the card, her greedy eyes falling directly on the signature.

The triumphant smile on her face hadn’t even fully bloomed before it instantly froze.

The next second, she snapped her head up.

Those eyes, which moments ago had been filled with hope, now bulged like brass bells, veined with blood and brimming with extreme fury.

She shrieked:

“Why did you fill in that murderer Kian Thorne’s name?!”

Relatives and neighbors looked utterly shocked and bewildered.

“Kian Thorne? That murderer?”

“What… what is this? Why write the name of someone completely unrelated?”

Dad violently snatched the card from Mom’s hand.

Seeing the name, his face, which had been flushed red with anger, instantly drained of all color, turning ashen.

Their previous frantic demeanor, desperate to seek justice for their daughter, vanished without a trace.

I watched their expressions instantly return to normal, and the last sliver of hope in my heart completely disintegrated.

I took a step forward, asking in a deliberately innocent tone,

“What’s wrong? I resurrected the enemy who killed my sister. Aren’t you going to hit me anymore? Aren’t you going to scold me?”