Chapter 1

The day my mother drove her Maybach to school to see me, I was in the dining hall picking through someone else's leftovers.

She snatched the food out of my hands, furious, and dumped it in the trash.

"It's not like I don't give you money. You're sitting here eating other people's leftovers—are you trying to make everyone think I don't even feed my own daughter?"

I was about to explain when my academic advisor suddenly leaned in and whispered to me,

"Don't talk back. Your mom cares about appearances. Don't put her on the spot."

The advisor was my mother's best friend. My mother had been sending all my living expenses to her to pass on to me—two hundred dollars a month.

Having calmed me down, the advisor turned straight to my mother.

"Theresa was only trying not to waste food. That's a good thing. Don't be too hard on her."

My mother's expression softened a little, but her tone remained stern.

"Being thrifty is fine, but you can't go eating other people's leftovers. Imagine what people would say if word got out."

"Give me your meal card and go get me a meal. I want to taste what your dining hall food is like."

I lowered my head and said quietly.

"I don't have any money."

My mother lost her temper and snapped at me,

"No money? I transfer fifty thousand dollars to your advisor every single month for your allowance, and it's only the start of the month and you're telling me you have no money? Where did it all go?!"

——

In an instant, the whole dining hall fell silent.

This was the first time I'd ever picked up someone else's leftovers.

Faced with a pile of meat scraps and vegetable stems, I wolfed it down, as if I could swallow the plate along with the food.

Everyone in the dining hall was looking at me.

But their eyes were strangely calm.

As if they'd long since expected something like this to happen to me.

Because I was so poor.

Poor to the point of barely surviving.

On the first day of freshman year, my mother was away on a business trip and had no time to drop me off.

But she made a point of sending me a message.

"Your advisor is my closest friend. From now on I'll transfer your living expenses to her every month. If anything comes up, just go straight to her."

Seeing that message back then, I actually felt reassured.

I figured that even though my mother was always buried in work, she still cared about me—she'd even made sure I had someone looking out for me at college.

But once I'd finished registration, moved into my dorm, and gone to find the advisor, she handed me only two hundred dollars.

"Theresa, this is the monthly allowance your mom asked me to pass on to you."

I stared at the two hundred dollars in her hand, completely stunned.

"Two hundred dollars... to last me a whole month?"

The advisor gave a small nod and said,

"It's not a lot, but you won't be spending much at school, so it should be enough."

"Don't blame your mom, either. She says young people these days are too spoiled, and she doesn't want a daughter who has everything handed to her. So she wants to use this chance to really teach you how to live frugally and manage your money."

"She said that only by making two hundred dollars a month through all four years of college will you be able to handle the pressures of the real world later—that you'll become someone tough and hardworking, someone who can take whatever life throws at you."

I don't know how I made it back to the classroom.

I only remember that my head was a mess that day.

My mother, a company CEO, was worth a fortune.

She could spend three hundred dollars on a single bag of treats for our cat.

The cat would eat a few bites, and the whole bag would be gone.

That worked out to barely six dollars and sixty cents a day.

An average of six dollars and sixty cents a day.

The cheapest vegetable dish in the dining hall was two-fifty, and rice was a dollar.

One bowl of rice with one vegetable side already came to three-fifty.

Even if I skipped breakfast, I'd still spend at least $210 a month.

Not to mention necessities like toilet paper, toothpaste, body wash, and pads, plus unavoidable expenses like class dues, textbook fees, club fees, and utilities.