Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My mother was never in good health. When I was eleven, she passed away.

Half of her illness came from exhaustion, and the other half from anger-or perhaps it would be more accurate to say she had been cursed into it.

While she was fighting for her life by a thread, the women waiting outside to become my stepmother could have formed an entire soccer team.

The most eager of them all was Wei Yao, my father’s longtime “close female friend.” Every day, she would circle past the hospital room just to see whether my mother was dead yet.

I was so furious I cried, but my mother had long since grown used to it. After a violent bout of coughing and wheezing, she even had the leisure to joke, “Your father is handsome, and he’s a leader-not too high, not too low-with his career on the rise. A promotion, a fortune, and a dead wife. Of course a man like that is in demand.”

I hated hearing her talk like that. I cried and stamped my feet, throwing a tantrum.

Mother reached out with her thin, withered arm and pulled me into her embrace. Then she handed me a Black Leather Handbook and smiled. “Jiaojiao, that woman is the little toy Mommy is leaving for you. Take this handbook. From now on, whether Mommy is here or not, that woman won’t be able to stir up any trouble. No one will ever become your new mother.”

“They will all be your pawns. Enjoy this life to your heart’s content, my Little Crocodile.” Those were the last words she left me.

The funeral had only just ended when Wei Yao moved into our home under the pretext of taking care of my father and me.

That woman thought I was young and easy to bully, so she marched right in as if she owned the place.

I watched coldly as she bustled around like the lady of the house, arranging this and organizing that, while my heart churned with poison.

But ever since I was little, my mother had taught me that children should be kindhearted-especially girls. One shouldn’t let petty emotions over trivial matters ruin the poise of a proper young lady.

I had always been wild and sharp-tongued outside, but obedient and well-behaved at home. I felt that even if Mother was gone, I couldn’t simply disregard her teachings. So I forced my expression to smooth over and calmly accepted Wei Yao.

She was extremely pleased. Late that night, when all was quiet and she called her parents, she even said, “If this girl keeps being this obedient and honestly treats me like her mother, I can consider not asking Zhenjiang to send her away. When she’s a little older, we won’t let her go to school anymore. We’ll marry her off to my brother’s idiot son. That’ll save my brother and sister-in-law a bride price too.”

Outside the door, I nearly laughed out loud in scorn.

The road ahead was still long. If she wanted to be my mother, she should first weigh herself and see if she was heavy enough.

I kept her around, but not so she could enjoy herself.