Bearing the Brunt

"You heard it? A student from Ashville High wants to jump!"

"I heard it's a girl?"

"I heard she didn't get good results during the mock exams, the pressure pushed her to want to jump."

My sister Lena threw a popcorn into her mouth as she rolled her eyes. "She wants to jump because she didn't get good results? So weak. I wonder just how bad her parents are. But if she's dead, she's dead. Leaving her alone is a waste of resources anyway."

Lena then remembered something and suddenly asked, "How's your daughter's result, Maya?"

I looked at the screen of my mobile and hid the wrath in my mind. "Just so so. She performed as usual."

"Don't tell me it's your daughter that's the one who wants to jump," Lena said with a smirk. "You should go take a look. Careful you have to handle her funeral."

I calmly sipped the boba tea from the cup. "My daughter won't jump."

Lena scoffed. "It's hard to say. Your daughter's result is so much worse than my daughter's. She might get stressed as she looks at my daughter with all the awards. She might get depressed one day and just jump out of her inferiority complex."

Ha…

I rolled my eyes behind my phone's screen.

Lena didn't know about it, but my daughter wasn't the one who wanted to jump.

It was hers, Tess Smith.

In my previous life, I was also chatting with Lena at the garden in the neighborhood close to the school. When I heard that someone wanted to jump, I could tell that it might be Lena's daughter Tess. I dragged Lena over despite her refusal.

The moment Lena saw what happened, she immediately stopped all her excuses. Because the one standing on top of the building was Lena's daughter, Tess. When Lena saw that her daughter was the one who wanted to jump, she almost fainted. The only reason she didn't collapse was that I was helping her.

When we got to the top floor, Tess hadn't jumped yet. Lena cried and told Tess not to do something stupid. She was crying out loud. "Tess! Come down! Don't do something stupid! Please don't… You can tell me anything!"

Tess's eyes were completely blank. "You're not my mom. You're a demon. Don't come near me…"

She then started to pull her hair with her eyes red. "You're just going to beat me to death… I should just…"

When Tess saw Lena, her emotions became even more unstable. She could jump at any time. I immediately pulled Lena back and went to calm Tess down. After talking with her, Tess finally told me why she wanted to jump.

It was because my daughter Anne had received direct admission to the National University. Tess was scared that Lena would blame her for not being better than Anne and Lena would beat her up. Instead of that, she should just give herself a quick one.

"If Anne was doing better than me, my mom would definitely kill me," Tess said and she suddenly glared at me maliciously. "Aunt Maya, can you please tell Anne to give me the guaranteed admission?"

I wanted to refuse her. I had no right to make the decision on Anne's behalf, not to mention she worked so hard for the guaranteed admission through all the competitions she had joined. Even if Anne and I agreed to it, the National University wouldn't agree to it.

When Lena saw me hesitating, she immediately ran over and grabbed my hair from the back. "My daughter is going to kill herself! And you won't agree with it? You want to kill my baby girl! You murderer!"

Lena and Tess blackmailed me, and I had no choice but to call my daughter over. I asked her to go along with it first. We need to calm Tess down before doing anything else. But I didn't expect Anne to be so direct. When Anne heard Tess's demand, she immediately refused. "You want my guaranteed admission recommendation? Impossible. The school won't agree to it either."

Anne had just finished saying that when Tess immediately rushed over from the edge of the building and grabbed my daughter's arm. "You won't let me have it? Then let's die together!"