1.1 My Ingrate Sister-in-Law
On the day of my nephew Damian Proctor's full-month celebration.
My sister-in-law Tiara Bailey invited many friends.
One of them was said to be the boss of a big company.
She brought some formula from her company for Damian and even tried to get Tiara to invest.
I was worried Tiara would be deceived, so I suggested she think it through.
Later, she heard that the woman made a fortune and moved abroad.
Ever since, Tiara often told Damian that if he'd had that formula, he'd have gotten into a top university, and she could've become a wealthy businesswoman.
As a result, Damian saw me as an obstacle to him getting rich.
During one visit home, he drugged my drink and killed me.
When I woke up, I was back on the day of his full-month celebration.
Seeing Tiara's eager gaze, I smiled and said, "Do as you like. I have no opinion about it."
***
I was reborn back to the day of Damian's full-month celebration.
The house was full of people, and most of them were Tiara's friends.
At the moment, she was holding the baby, standing next to a well-dressed woman, trying to butter her up.
The woman was called Ansley Barber, one of her former colleagues.
Ansley pulled out a stack of money from her bag, followed by a can of formula, saying it was for the baby.
Tiara's eyes gleamed at the sight of the money, yet she pretended to refuse, only to accept it gleefully in the end.
"This is money for the baby. Please take it. We're good friends, and I'll cover the baby's formula from now on.
"I'm working at a big company now, making loads of money. If you want to make some too, I'll get you in."
When Tiara heard it, her eyes lit up again, and she turned to me.
"Leticia, what do you think?"
In a daze, I seemed to recall the past life.
Back then, she had asked me the same thing.
At that time, I didn't want her to get scammed, so I told her to think it over carefully. After all, there was no such thing as a free lunch.
I even urged her to buy formula from a legitimate maternity store.
It was for the baby, after all, and if something went wrong, it could harm the child's health.
Tiara wasn't happy with me at the time, but our relatives thought I made sense, so she reluctantly followed my advice.
Later, when she found out that Ansley had made a fortune and moved abroad, she blamed me all day.
She said if it weren't for me, she would've been rich by then.
After Damian grew up, she bad-mouthed me to him every day, as if I was the reason for their poverty.
Damian came to see me as his enemy.
On one visit home, he secretly slipped rat poison into my drink, which killed me.
Snapping out of it, I saw Tiara's expectant eyes and smiled, saying, "Just do what you think is best. I trust you."
Whether or not your son could get into a top university, or whether you made a fortune, none of it had anything to do with me anymore.
Seeing me so agreeable, Tiara was thrilled.
She accepted the formula and then pulled Ansley aside for a chat.
After the celebration ended, my mom started checking the gifts while scolding me.
"You're his aunt, and yet your gift is worth less money than a stranger's."
"Mom, drop it. Leticia hasn't got a job since she got a postgraduate degree. She can barely take care of herself."
Off to the side, Marcus Proctor chimed in gleefully while eating some snacks.
Sure enough, hearing him say that, my mother started nagging again.
"What's the point of a girl getting that much education? I think you'd better come back and get married soon. What's so good about the big city? Wait too long, and you'll be an old lady that nobody wants.
"Look at your brother. He's so capable. So what if he didn't get into college? He still makes money and marries a good wife. Now, he's even given me a chubby grandson!"
After belittling me, she started praising her son again.
It had been like that my whole life, but I'd gotten used to it.
I frowned but said nothing. They all thought I hadn't found a stable job since graduation.
Little did they know, I'd joined a research team, earning tens of thousands in bonuses from just one experiment.
In the past life, after I told them about this, they kept an eye on me constantly.
Every expense in the family, including Damian's books and tuition and my mother's medical bills, fell on me.
In the end, not only were they ungrateful, but they also cost me my life.
This time, I wouldn't be that stupid.
After leaving my hometown, I threw myself back into the research project.
And I worked late every day.
My mom still had her mind set on marrying me off, constantly sending me pictures of men.
They weren't much to look at, but she kept praising them.
I didn't reply to her.
Then she called me directly. "What's going on, Leticia? Did you even see the messages I sent you? These are the best guys in our county. There's a boss who... Ouch!"
She was still talking when something happened, and the call ended abruptly.
Then my phone rang.
"Leticia, Damian's in the hospital. What should we do?"
It was Tiara, and she sounded panicked.
Damian?
"He's been vomiting and having diarrhea since last night. The doctor just said it's food poisoning. He's just a kid…"
"Food poisoning? What did you feed him?"
"Nothing special, just the formula Ansley gave us!" she cried.
"I knew that Ansley wasn't any good. The formula she gave us must've been bad, and now it made my son sick…"
Marcus chimed in from the phone.
"Shut up! Ansley is a great person. I bet it was your mom sneaking some corn mush to Damian while I wasn't looking last night…"
The voices on the phone were getting chaotic, so I held the phone away in disgust and hung up.
