When the flood came, my father, who was the captain of the rescue team, immediately rescued my cousin and cut my rescue rope. "Vivian can't swim, and there's not enough space on the helicopter. You won't die even if we rescue you a little later."

I was rushed to the hospital while hanging onto a thread, but my mother, who was a doctor, gave the last bag of rare blood to my cousin, who was not even seriously injured.

I begged with a weak voice, but my mother pried my fingers apart and said, "Your cousin is anemic and has always been in poor health. Must you fight for attention at such a time?"

My parents had no idea that I stopped breathing when they abandoned me.

The hovering rescue helicopter flew my father and cousin farther away.

I was half-submerged in the water, my hands weakly clinging to the driftwood. Blood had seeped out between my fingers, and my broken ribs were hurting violently.

When a metallic taste filled my mouth, I hazily saw my father, dressed in a rescue team uniform, lifting me high. "I'll always protect you, Yvette."

I reached out to touch my father's cheek, but everything evaporated.

My cousin, Vivian White, asked me to accompany her to an event at a resort a few days ago. I refused to pretend to be nice to her but reluctantly agreed when my mother chided me.

Unexpectedly, Vivian wanted me to accompany the organizer of the contest she was joining.

When I fought back, a flood hit, and the resort was instantly flooded.

I dragged Vivian up a tree, but she cried and resented me. "Your parents are right. You're a jinx."

I suppressed the bitterness in my heart and finally waited for my father's arrival with the rescue team.

Knowing that there was only one place on the helicopter, my father did not hesitate to cut the rescue rope from me. "Vivian can't swim, and there's not enough space on the helicopter. You won't die even if we rescue you a little later."

I fell from mid-air, and my insides hurt as if they had shifted.

However, my father indifferently closed the hatch with Vivian in his arms.

…

When I regained consciousness, I was in the hospital emergency room.

My mother anxiously ordered the nurse beside her, "There's only one bag of rare blood left? Give it to Vivian first!"

The nurse pointed at me with a frown. "Dr. Zimmer, the newly sent patient is also waiting for a blood transfusion."

My mother paused for a moment when she saw my face.

I felt my vitality slipping away bit by bit. Biting the tip of my tongue, I grabbed the hem of my mother's clothes with all my strength. "Mom, I'm in so much pain."

However, my mother indifferently pried my fingers apart as if I were not her biological daughter but her enemy. "Yvette Ford, your cousin is anemic and has always been in poor health. Must you fight for attention at such a time?"

I helplessly looked at my mother's back as she turned around and left. I wanted to call out to her, but a large amount of blood poured out of my mouth.

The nurse beside me anxiously called the emergency doctor.

I looked at her anxious expression and my eyes gradually became blurred.

How ridiculous. My parents, who were closest to me, abandoned me without hesitation, yet a stranger who had nothing to do with me was trying her best to save me.

The ECG monitor rang rapidly. I saw the doctor cover my pale body with a white cloth. They shook their head and sighed heavily.

'Mom and Dad, you got your wish. Your disappointment of a daughter is dead,' I thought to myself. 'I died when my father cut my rescue rope… I died when my mother resolutely gave the rare blood to Vivian, who's only slightly anemic.'

I closed my eyes as if this would make me stop feeling like crying.

Suddenly, I heard a childish voice. "Have you seen my mother?"

Following my daughter Nicole Ford's stumbling figure, my soul arrived at Vivian's ward.

Vivian was comfortably lying in her single ward while I was casually left on a stretcher in the hallway. She leaned against the head of the bed, looking weak and eating the fruit my mother cut.

"Grandma, where's my mom? I miss her," Nicole said.

Nicole's babyish voice rang out, seemingly shocking Vivian, who recoiled and said with reddish eyes, "Mom..."

My mother glared at Nicole impatiently. "You're a troublemaker like your mother. Vivian needs to rest. Who brought you here?"

Breathless, the nanny ran over. "Nicole said she saw her mom being sent to the hospital on TV and insisted on seeing her."

My mother looked at Nicole with disgust. "Don't play the victim like your mom. If you don't learn well when you're young, you'll give birth to a love child like your mother when you grow up."

Nicole was reprimanded mercilessly. She stood aside, feeling aggrieved and too scared to speak.

The ward door was pushed open. My father hurried to see Vivian before he could clean the dust on his face.

When Nicole saw my father, her eyes lit up. "Grandpa, did you save Mom?"

His expression darkened as he kicked away Nicole, who wanted to get close to him. "Don't call me 'Grandpa'! Your mother is just good at pretending to be dead and missing. She doesn't need me to save her!"

I bit my lip to swallow my sobs.

My parents had always thought that all I did was play the victim and pretend to be dead. Even the daughter I had worked so hard to raise was considered a love child.

Vivian secretly smiled. "Nicole is just anxious to find her mother. Yvette sure is something. She disappeared and left behind such a young child." She pretended to hold Nicole's hand intimately as she spoke.

Nicole felt pain and bit her wrist.

Vivian shook Nicole away with force, lowering her gaze to hide the hatred in her eyes. "Looks like Nicole doesn't like me, just like Yvette. I shouldn't have joined this family in the first place..."

Familiar words rang in my ears.

When I was in high school, my aunt and uncle died in a car accident, and Vivian was brought home. My mother gently told me, "You must take good care of Vivian from now on."

However, Vivian, who was well-behaved in front of my parents, would secretly tease me and set me up as part of her daily routine. She always cried and complained to my parents, saying, "It's normal that Yvette doesn't like me, but she pinched me so hard that it hurt."

Looking at the bruises that Vivian left on herself, my parents punished me by making me kneel all night.

Vivian was now using the same trick on my daughter. As expected, my mother coaxed Vivian with distress.

My father pushed Nicole out of the ward. "Get lost with your mother and don't disturb our family!"

I wanted to help Nicole up, but I could not touch her and could only watch the nanny leave with Nicole, who kept looking back. Closing my eyes, I tried to suppress the pain in my heart. I looked at the happy 'family of three' in the ward.

My father's big hands which used to caress the top of my head were now peeling oranges for Vivian. Meanwhile, my mother gently looked at Vivian and fixed the hair at her temples.

As Vivian said, I did not belong to this family.

After Vivian was taken back to my house, my face was no longer in the family photos on the wall, and I was no longer my parent's good daughter. Unloved people were outsiders to the family.

The flood overwhelmed the hospital. Unidentified bodies could only be kept in the morgue, where they would wait to be claimed by family members.

Nicole waited at home for me to return but still failed to resist running to the hospital to find me.

Vivian smiled maliciously. "Nicole, your mother is dead. You'll never see her again."

Nicole looked at her warily. "You're talking nonsense. Mom would never leave me!"

Vivian sneered, "Go to the hospital morgue and have a look. Your mother is there!"

Nicole saw my blueish stiff face in the morgue, but no matter how she called out to me, I could not sit up and hold her in my arms. Nicole finally burst into tears. No matter how sensible she was, she was only a four-year-old child.

Her crying caught the doctor's attention, and she was brought to my mother. Nicole threw herself on my mother's lap.

Her face was covered with tears, looking pitiful. "Grandma, I saw Mom. She's lying there motionless. Grandma, I'll take you to see Mom. Will you wake her up? Mom said you used to wake her up when she was attending elementary school."

Mom froze as if recalling something. Seeing a reaction out of her, I seemed to be anxious.

'Is she going to the morgue?' I wondered, but my illusions were shattered in the next second.

My mother's face was full of disgust as she rolled her eyes at Nicole with annoyance. "Children learn behaviors from their parents. You've learned to lie at such a young age. You have no manners. You said your mother died. That's good. I wish I didn't have her as a daughter!"

Seeing Nicole crying, my mother pushed her to the ground.

I looked at the blood oozing from Nicole's knees with sorry and could only clench my hands and dig my nails into the flesh.

"I didn't lie! Mom just fell asleep!"

My mother tutted and called the security guard over. "Don't just let anyone in. Get her nanny to pick her up."

Nicole was her granddaughter, but my mother was unwilling to give Nicole even a hint of affection. Back in the ward, my mother glanced at my father, who was feeding Vivian oatmeal, and said with a sneer, "Your darling daughter teamed up with her little love child to play dead."

My father pursed his lips. "I don't have a daughter like her!"

Vivian's eyes glimmered as she sighed softly and said sadly, "Is it because you all chose to save me first that Yvette is playing dead to get your attention?"

My mother looked at Vivian's red eyes and comforted her, saying, "Darling, you matter the most to me. You're in poor health, so it's only right that she give in to you! Your father and I won't believe her act."

My father nodded and echoed, "That woman must be hiding to watch what unravels next. Vivian, don't worry about her. Your health matters the most."

My parents' words of concern were particularly harsh. They were like sharp swords that wanted to pierce me.

Vivian's usual pitiful act worked every time on my parents.

In my second year of high school, Vivian deliberately locked me in the bathroom while I was bathing and turned off the water heater. I was freezing and had no choice but to kick the door open.

I complained to my parents, but Vivian said pitifully, "Yvette, you already bully me at school every day. Now, you're even slandering me at home."

That night, my furious mother beat me up and forbade me from eating or drinking. I had a high fever in the middle of the night. My mother was shocked upon learning that and urged my father to take me to the hospital.

Vivian then said leisurely, "I wondered why you took a cold shower today. Turns out you wanted your mom to care about you."

My heart gradually sank and fell into an endless abyss when I met my parents' disappointed gaze. From that day on, I never heard a word of concern from my parents.

At school, Vivian teamed up with the hooligans she knew to deal with me. I would find dead rats in my schoolbag, and my homework and test papers would be ripped up. My grades also began to decline. I went from the first in my grade to beyond the top 100.

My parents only frowned when they saw me. "You fool around instead of studying. Can you be more like Vivian?"

Vivian, who joined my family as a pitiful girl, gradually replaced my position in my parents' hearts. They began to call Vivian their daughter, but Vivian was still not content. She wanted me to lose everything, and now, she finally did it.

I lost my parents' love and the opportunity to go to a key university. I even lost my life, but no one believed that I had died.