Chapter 2

There was a pile of bones in the center of the room, and a rusty fishing spear lay on top of it.

She kicked it without the slightest concern.

The window glass was shattered, and the sea wind poured in.

The excrement of the grandmother with Alzheimer’s was everywhere.

Grandma was curled up in a pile of tattered bedding, dazed, drool constantly running from her mouth.

Mom, Sophia, frowned, covered her nose, waved at the foul smell in the air, and could not help complaining:

“Why is this place like a dump? Don’t you know how to clean?”

“Anna! Get out here and clean this up!”

Sophia looked around, and her voice calling my name grew louder and louder.

I happily threw myself at her, but I hugged nothing, passing through her body like air.

I forgot again.

I had died three years ago.

After hoping and waiting so long, I had finally waited until Mom came back.

She was carrying cookies and cake, and I was so greedy that I almost drooled.

I felt happy inside, thinking Mom still had me in her heart, and she had finally come to take me home.

I jumped around beside her happily:

“Mom, I’m here, I’m right here.”

Her phone rang, and unable to stand the stench in the house, she went outside to answer it.

I immediately followed her.

“Baby, be good. Mom will be back soon. I’m picking up your sister.”

“Mom bought you your favorite cookies and cake, all the things you love.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll be back in a little while, and tonight Mom will hold you while you sleep.”

I froze, and my excited heart instantly turned icy cold, as if a basin of cold water had been poured over it.

So those cookies and cakes were bought for my younger sister.

I waved my arms in grievance and roared at her:

“I’m your biological daughter, so why don’t you love me?”

“I was clearly more obedient than my adopted sister, so if you didn’t like me, why did you give birth to me?”

She could not hear anything and turned back into the house with a disgusted look on her face.

“Mom! Where is Anna? What’s going on? I’ve been calling for so long, and there’s no response!”

Her tone began to grow impatient, and she raised her hand to check the expensive watch on her wrist, clearly anxious to hurry back.

I squatted on the ground, like the year I had almost starved to death, too powerless to hate.

For someone who does not love you, even overwhelming love is like punching cotton.

So my adopted sister was already this old, and Mom would still hold her while she slept.

But when I was five, after they adopted my sister and brought her home, I was sent to the fishing village and made to sleep with the grandmother who had Alzheimer’s.

When Grandma’s illness acted up, she was like a violent thug and would beat me until I was covered in bruises.

I cried so hard that snot bubbled from my nose as I clung to Sophia’s leg and begged bitterly:

“Mom, please, take me home. I don’t want to stay here.”

She frowned, her whole face saying I was being spoiled:

“You’re the older sister, so you need to be sensible. Your sister just came to our home, and everything is unfamiliar to her, so she needs more care.”

“Don’t be naughty and provoke Grandma, and she won’t hit you. Clara’s grandmother is sick, and Clara endured it all, so you can too.”

She always said I could do it too, so I had to shoulder so many things that a child my age should never have had to bear.

From then on, I never knew again what Mom’s bed or Mom’s embrace smelled like.

“Anna, Anna catching bugs, a whole bunch, dead child...”

Grandma was not clear-headed, and she could not recognize my mom as she slowly muttered to herself.

My mom stopped looking for me and stared at the ruined house in disgust, nagging:

“She’s still as naughty as she was when she was little! Not quiet and graceful like Clara at all.”

“What kind of girl catches bugs? She made the room dirtier than a doghouse.”

“She’s such a big girl now, but she has no sense of hygiene at all!”

“And she’s always trying to come home with me. With how sloppy she is, she really has been spoiled rotten by me...”

She let out a heavy sigh.

It was full of disappointment in me.

My heart felt as if a hole had been torn through it, and the pain made even my soul tremble.

But Mom, I caught bugs because there was nothing to eat at home.

Grandma and I were so hungry that we were weak, and we really could not get any thinner, so I caught bugs.

I was so scared that I wailed, but I still did not dare let go.

To fight birds for bugs, I climbed very high up trees and often fell down.

Even if I managed to catch a bug and roast it, I could not bear to eat it myself.

Instead, I saved it for Grandma, and only after Grandma was full could I eat.

But Grandma was never full, and she even got so hungry that she bit a chunk of flesh from my leg.

Even after becoming a ghost, the spot where that piece of flesh was bitten away from my leg was still hollow.

Many families in the fishing village had moved away, and now only Grandma remained in this broken-down house.

After I went into the sea to catch fish and was speared to death by a fisherman, the former village chief thought my parents had picked me up.

Seeing how pitiful Grandma was, he would deliver food every week, and sometimes once every two weeks.

That was how Grandma survived.