My stepmother, Mary, hated me to the bone.

All because when I was little, I went to a classmate’s house to play and forgot to close the courtyard gate. Her son ran onto the road and was hit to death by a car.

My father loved my younger brother the most. After learning what happened, he was heartbroken.

“Were you jealous of your brother? That’s why you deliberately left the gate open?”

I desperately explained that I had closed the gate, but Dad didn’t believe me. He locked me in the basement and raised me like a dog for the rest of my life.

Until one day, when Dad went on a business trip, Mary didn’t give me any food for three days.

Starving, I crawled upstairs to the kitchen to look for something to eat.

That was when I saw Mary sitting on a man’s lap, saying softly, “If you hadn’t forgotten to close the gate back then, I wouldn’t be living in fear every day of my husband finding out… We’re the ones who killed Ethan.”

Only then did I understand that I wasn’t the one who had forgotten to close the gate and caused my brother to run outside, but my stepmother’s lover.

Just as I was about to sneak back to the basement, my stepmother noticed me.

“What did you hear? No! I can’t let your father find out that I killed our own son!”

In a panic, she grabbed me and threw me down the stairs, killing me on the spot.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day the car hit my brother.

I blinked my innocent, childlike eyes and pointed upstairs, speaking in a soft, baby voice, “Dad, I closed the gate. It was the man in Mom’s bedroom who didn’t!”

“Lucy, you’re saying you saw some man leave the yard gate unlocked?!”

Dad stood outside the gate, his bloodshot eyes locked onto me.

I sneered inwardly.

Look at how much he loved my younger brother, Ethan.

In my previous life, I explained over and over that I had locked the gate properly. However, he only believed the pillow talk whispered by my stepmother, Mary, and decided that I was the one who caused the death of his only son.

My mother died giving birth to me. Before the first week after her funeral was even over, he brought a pregnant Mary into the house.

That woman secured her position as the wife of the house by giving birth to a premature baby boy. Because of it, her body was damaged, and she could never have another child.

So, Ethan became my dad’s entire world.

After Ethan died, he treated me like a dog. He fed me dog food, made me sleep in a cage, and forced me to bark just to vent his useless rage and ease his guilt toward Mary.

However, in this life, I won’t be that stupid again.

I would use his suspicion as a man, use his so-called fatherly love, and grind that disgusting pair into the dirt.

That was why the very first thing I did after being reborn was rush home to catch Mary cheating. Yet I hadn’t expected that the moment I turned back, I would see Ethan standing in the middle of the road.

Dad, who was further away, looked like his eyes were about to pop out. As for me, who was closer and wanted to leave a good impression in front of him, I grabbed Ethan and pulled him back.

So Ethan didn’t crack his head open and die on the spot like last time. Instead, his leg was crushed, leaving him crippled.

“Honey!”

Mary’s shrill scream snapped me out of my thoughts. She rushed over, crying messily as she clung to my dad’s arm.

“Don’t listen to this little b*tch’s lies! Her mother died early, and she’s hated the two of us for a long time! She opened the gate on purpose! She wanted to kill our baby, Ethan!”

Before Dad could react, I immediately ran forward on my short little legs, threw myself at his thigh, and hugged it tightly. I lifted my dirty face and looked at him with the purest, most innocent gaze I could manage.

“Dad, I didn’t!” I said in a soft, childish voice, already trembling with sobs, sounding as wronged as possible.

“I want a mom to love me, too, but Mom doesn’t love me. I thought that if I treated Ethan well, you’d like me more…”

As I spoke, I squeezed out a few fat tears and pointed toward Ethan, who was lying nearby with his broken leg, crying weakly.

“I give Ethan my milk every day, and I let him play with my favorite teddy bear… Just now, if I hadn’t pulled him, he would’ve flown into the sky and never been able to play with me again.

“Our teacher says we should respect adults and take care of kids, so I did. Dad, you have to believe me.”

Since I always acted extra nice to Ethan to please my dad, I said all of this without even blinking.

I clung tightly to his leg, using every ounce of strength a child could muster to depend on him, and then finally threw out my bait.

“If Dad doesn’t believe me, you can go upstairs right now and look for that man. He definitely hasn’t left yet!”

After hearing my words, my dad’s face darkened.

He reached out and pinched my cheek. “I believe you.”

With that, he turned and charged upstairs. That posture didn’t look like he was going to catch someone, but fight for his life.

Mary’s face went pale. When she failed to stop him, she could only stomp her foot and cry out, “Honey! The most important thing right now is sending our son to the hospital!”

However, my dad was someone who could tolerate anything except being cuckolded.

What was a son’s broken leg compared to his pride?

He didn’t look back and went straight upstairs.

Of course, he came up empty-handed. The man had already slipped away, but the unfamiliar scent of men’s cologne upstairs was so strong it was choking, lingering no matter what.

Mary, of course, came prepared. Her tears flowed instantly, and right there on the spot, she pulled a beautifully packaged bottle of men’s cologne from her bag and cried softly.

“Honey, I bought this especially for you. I wanted to surprise you…”

No one believed her excuse.

However, my dad had no evidence.

The ambulance arrived with a wail and took Ethan away. Before getting into the vehicle, Dad stared hard at Mary and squeezed out a few words through clenched teeth.

“If I find out some wild man caused my son’s leg to break, I’ll make sure his entire family pays!”

I was anxious but powerless, knowing how skilled and prepared Mary was. I couldn’t beat her head-on yet and could only wait for another chance.

At the hospital, Ethan cried in pain nonstop.

I immediately rushed to the bed, grabbed his little hand, and choked up. “Ethan, don’t cry. Your sister’s here.”

Maybe the fall had stunned him, or that my usual fake kindness had worked. He subconsciously leaned into me. “It was Lucy who saved me.”

My dad praised me from the side, calling me well-behaved.

However, when he saw Ethan’s leg wrapped in plaster, he couldn’t help sighing, muttering, “At least it didn’t cause more damage.”

With no evidence of who opened the yard gate, my dad could only keep a suspicious eye on Mary.

Mary, meanwhile, acted as gently and obediently as possible, insisting it was because the gate was old and had loosened on its own.

And just like that, the matter passed without much resolution.

After we returned home, Mary treated me unbelievably well. She personally cooked barbecue ribs for me, bought me pretty new dresses, and even tucked me in at night.

She was so gentle, as if I were her biological child.

Watching all this, my dad’s suspicion gradually faded. He probably thought that even if a woman had done something wrong, for the sake of the children and the family, she would eventually settle down.

But I knew better.

The more she acted like this, the more it proved she had a guilty conscience. She was desperate to wash the filth off herself, just so she could dump it back onto me later.

I was also waiting for her true colors to show.

Despite all my precautions and calculations, I still underestimated how vicious she was.

That weekend, early in the morning, Mary sent me back to my second-floor bedroom to do homework, while she pushed the sleeping Ethan out onto the second-floor balcony to get some sun.

I lifted my head from my workbook. The unease in my chest grew.

Sure enough, at the exact moment my dad pushed open the front door, a loud crash echoed from the stairwell, followed by Mary’s piercing scream.

“Ah! Lucy! How could you push Ethan?!”

My dad’s steps stopped abruptly. As he looked up, he saw me standing in the second-floor hallway, while Ethan, with his wheelchair, lay overturned at the bottom of the stairs on the first floor.

I clenched my fists tightly. I had to stay calm.

“Dad, I didn’t push Ethan. I was in my bedroom doing homework while Mom was watching Ethan on the second-floor balcony.” My voice carried just the right amount of trembling, sounding exactly like a frightened child.

Dad was holding the unconscious Ethan. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on me, like a wild beast on the verge of losing control.

Mary immediately rushed to speak first. “I clearly told Lucy to watch Ethan on the second floor, then I went downstairs to get some onions from Nancy next door. Nancy can testify for me!”

I sneered inwardly.

What a clever move. She had calculated Dad’s return time perfectly and deliberately gone to the neighbor to create an alibi.

Sure enough, Nancy, who had always been close with Mary, squeezed out of the crowd at once, her face full of righteous indignation.

“That’s right, Daniel. Mary just borrowed onions from me, saying she was going to cook your favorite fish. I personally watched her walk back into the yard!”

After that, she didn’t forget to point at me, adding painfully, “We saw your daughter standing on the second floor when we came over, just coldly looking down, with no reaction at all!

“Honestly, Lucy, how can you be so cruel? Last time something happened to Ethan, wasn’t it also because you deliberately didn’t close the yard gate?”

That single remark stirred up a storm.

The surrounding neighbors immediately started talking over one another.

“Exactly. That kid doesn’t look like a good one.”

“So young, yet already so jealous. What’ll happen when she grows up?”

Seeing this, Mary immediately covered her face and began to sob at just the right moment. Her body went limp as she leaned into Dad.

“Honey, don’t blame Lucy. What happened with the yard gate last time might’ve just been an accident. Maybe this time wasn’t intentional either…”

Those words, retreating on the surface, only nailed my guilt more firmly in place.

Dad’s gaze turned completely cold.

He had seen it—Mary anxiously rushing in from outside the yard, and me standing on the second floor like an indifferent bystander.

Seeing was believing.

“Last time, I saw you pull Ethan back, so I believed you,” Dad said hoarsely. “This time, I witnessed you pushing him down the stairs with my own eyes. What are you still trying to argue?”

The trust in his eyes shattered in an instant, replaced by disgust so thick that it couldn’t be dissolved.

“There isn’t a trace of fear on your face, Lucy. Was saving Ethan last time just an act you put on for me, too?”

I was so anxious that tears burst out immediately. I cried and shouted, “It wasn’t me! It was that man Mom brought home! The same one as last time! That’s why Mom had time to go find Nancy!

“Dad, don’t you believe me?”

Crying, I yelled with all the strength in my body, “Call the police! Call the police! The police on TV say that if you’re in trouble, you go to the police! Let them check the fingerprints on the wheelchair. They’ll definitely prove Lucy’s innocence!”

When I saw Dad’s arm around Mary loosen slightly, I knew my words had worked.

Choking back tears, my gaze fixed straight on the unconscious Ethan in his arms.

“Dad, if there really is a bad person hiding in our house who wants to hurt Ethan, what would he do?”

That sentence was like a needle, piercing straight into the softest part of Dad’s heart.

Mary’s face instantly turned pale. She bit her lip hard, then seemed to make up her mind. She suddenly lifted her head and looked at Dad through tear-filled eyes.

“That’s a question I should be asking you! Our family of three was living just fine. If this disaster weren’t here, how could our home ever know anything but peace?”

Her voice was full of sobs, every word squeezed out from deep in her chest.

“Honey, I followed you without asking for anything and gave birth to our son. How could I possibly harm our own flesh and blood?

“Every day I rack my brain cooking for you, keeping this house in perfect order. Have you forgotten all of that?

“Your misunderstanding of me doesn’t matter. What I’m afraid of is your being fooled by this ungrateful brat and regretting it for the rest of your life!”