Chapter 3

After that desperate act of selling my blood to survive, I changed completely.

I stopped sending Mom those pitiful, pleading messages. I still wrote the weekly reports, but the content was all copy-pasted word salad.

Other than that, I started working like crazy—picking up deliveries for people, waiting tables in the cafeteria, tutoring on weekends, and even posing as a paid model for art students.

As long as it paid and wasn't illegal, I did it.

But one afternoon, just as I got back from a tutoring session, I saw Mom standing at the entrance of my dorm building.

The moment she spotted me, she started shouting, "Sabrina!"

My heart skipped a beat.

"I heard you've been keeping quite busy with your extracurricular work?" She walked up to me. "Carrying out side businesses unrelated to your main responsibilities without authorization—do you think the contract is just a piece of scrap paper?

"If your Aunt Beatrice hadn't told me, I would never have known you had it in you to secretly take on part-time jobs!"

My aunt, Beatrice Knapp, lived near my campus.

By now, some classmates nearby were already looking over with curiosity.

I clenched my fists and said in a low voice, "I need money to live."

"Money? What about your base salary?"

"You suspended it."

Mom let out a cold laugh and suddenly raised her volume. "I suspended it because your performance didn't meet the standards.

"You made a mistake, showed no remorse, and now you dare to set up secondary income and a slush fund behind my back? This is a serious violation of the rules!"

Her voice drew an even larger crowd. My cheeks burned with humiliation, and I just wanted to find a hole to crawl into.

"Mom, can we go back and talk about this? Please?"

"Go back? Why should we go back? What's there to hide? I'm going to check your personal accounts right here, right now."

She snatched my backpack and, in front of everyone, dumped everything out onto the ground. My books, my notes, a ballpoint pen, the 800 dollars I'd just earned from tutoring, and the debit card containing my hard-earned money all came tumbling out.

Mom picked up the debit card and let out a scoff.

"Just as I suspected. Sabrina, you've got quite the nerve."

"Give it back to me!" I shouted, my eyes instantly turning red.

That money was what kept me alive!

She stepped back, clutching the debit card and cash tightly in her hands.

"According to company policy, all income earned through violations is to be confiscated. I'm also temporarily freezing this debit card until you recognize your mistakes."

Having finished berating me, she walked off with the money I'd earned through blood, sweat, and tears.

I crouched down and picked up my belongings one by one, tears falling uncontrollably.

Now, the clause in the contract that read "Upon receiving the National Scholarship, the year-end bonus will be 20 thousand dollars" had become my only reason to keep going.