Chapter 4

I slung the woven sack over my shoulder, pushed Harris out of the way, and went straight outside.

He tried to stop me, but the strength I had built up from years of working at the construction site was nothing to laugh at.

When my mom saw that, she stopped crying too.

Without looking back, I left that house. Now I had to go to the hospital.

Over the past three years, every physical exam report I had ever gotten had been taken away by them under the excuse that it was “easier for the doctor to keep track of things.”

I needed to make sure they hadn’t tampered with my body without me knowing.

Just as I reached the hospital entrance, I saw Thompson.

He was dressed head to toe in designer clothes, with the latest limited-edition sneakers on his feet, chatting and laughing with a few friends.

When he saw me, the smile on his face immediately turned to disgust.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my brick-carrying construction worker sister, Alice?”

His friends burst out laughing.

“Thompson, this is the idiot sister you were talking about? She worked herself into looking like a beggar just to get your mom treated.”

“That’s so touching, too bad she’s just a sucker.”

Thompson looked smug and walked up to me, fanning the gray, dusty fabric of my clothes with his hand.

“Hey, you’d better go back obediently, or else you’re going to regret it.”

I sneered, “I’m waiting. Let’s see what you can do.”

Thompson was furious and grabbed my arm.

“Alice, don’t push your luck! I’m telling you, you’re just a dog our family raised. I tell you what to do, and you do it!”

Just then, my mom and Harris also came running over.

Seeing us struggling, my mom immediately rushed up and, without even thinking, slapped me across the face.

With a crisp, loud smack.

“You ungrateful brat! How dare you lay a hand on Thompson!”

She pointed at my nose and started shouting outside the hospital.

“Everybody come look! This unfilial daughter has a mother with leukemia and doesn’t care at all, and now she’s even trying to hit her little brother!”

“I worked so hard to raise her, and this is how she repays me! I might as well die!”

While crying and screaming, she even started to lunge toward a pillar nearby.