Chapter 4

Every month, Mom transferred $10,000.

Dad gave $2,000 to Jack, leaving $8,000. The numbers matched perfectly, like a production line that had been laid out long ago.

Everyone in the family had their assigned role. I was the only product dissatisfied with its treatment off the assembly line.

Mom video-called me that night. She kept her voice low, probably afraid of waking her employer.

"Brielle, don't send those documents anywhere yet. Your dad was just being foolish. Men have business pressures. Playing a few rounds once in a while is normal."

"$8,000 a month for six months, and you call that once in a while?"

"He's still your father."

I asked her, "Then what about the $1,800 Jack took?"

Mom paused. "Jack has a girlfriend. He needs money. When he gets married and buys a house, which of those things won't cost money? You have financial aid at school. You can get by if you spend less.

"And besides, the family will have to rely on Jack to support us when we're old."

I understood.

Jack's future was the family's flagship project. It needed investment.

I was a disposable asset. I would get married sooner or later, and depreciation wouldn't affect the family's bottom line.

"Mom, when you send me $10,000 every month, is it because you want to make sure I have enough to eat, or because you want everyone to know you can afford to support a college student?"

Her breathing caught. Then the tears came instantly. She wiped her eyes and talked about how hard she worked away from home, how everything she had done in her life was for me and Jack.

Whenever she cried in the past, I would immediately apologize, as if all the suffering she had endured ultimately had to be settled on my account.

Only after she had cried herself out did I say, "The money you sent was real, but I never received any of it. You weren't unaware. You just didn't want to look into it."

Her crying stopped instantly. "Brielle, don't be so cruel. Jack is doing a clarification livestream tomorrow night, and his company executives will be watching. Just admit you were wrong. Say the family treated you well and you were the one who wasted the money. Once this blows over, I will make it up to you with another $200."

"What if I don't go?"

Her voice turned completely cold. "Are you really going to ruin Jack's job?"

I looked at the woman on my screen, the one I had missed for so many years. When I was little, and she went away for work, she always brought Jack sneakers and me hair clips. She used to say girls should look pretty.

Later, she was also the one who took me to get my hair cut short because hair clips couldn't be eaten or used to pay for textbooks.

"He's the one who put me on that livestream. He didn't leave himself a way out."

After hanging up, I opened my phone and revoked my access to the family-linked account. Finally, I deleted every payment QR code Dad had been sending me.

After I finished the series of actions, I suddenly realized my hands had been shaking the entire time.

My phone buzzed.

Jack had sent me the apology statement for tomorrow night's livestream, with one final line: "Cooperate. If the numbers on this stream are good, the company will make me a full-time streamer."

I stared at the message and suddenly laughed. So while he was stepping on my face to climb upward, he still thought I wasn't lying flat enough.

I replied: "Okay. Tomorrow night, I'll explain exactly where every dollar went, one transaction at a time."

He sent back a thumbs-up.

Clearly, he hadn't understood.

Then again, someone who used his sister as a stepping stone usually wouldn't think to look down and check whether the stepping stone had grown teeth.

Early the next morning, Ms. Snow pulled the cafeteria security footage.

In the complete video, a small dish of leftover food from the student ahead of me had touched my tray, causing the scale system to overcharge me by two cents.

I had merely said, "Ma'am, this isn't mine. Could you refund the two cents?"

The secretly recorded video had been edited to cut out everything before and after, leaving only the words, "Refund the two cents."

The cafeteria manager agreed to provide a written statement explaining what had happened.

The charity platform also found the supposed $10 refund.

That day, I saw a classmate from my year hospitalized with an illness and wanted to donate $10. My card balance was too low, so the payment failed.

Later, I used cash I'd earned from tutoring and asked a classmate to donate $20 on my behalf.

But the campus forum changed the story, claiming I had made a donation and then requested a refund.

After reviewing the materials, Ms. Snow's face looked grim. "Your work-study position will be reinstated. The campus forum has to delete the video and issue a public correction."

I nodded and copied the recording of Jack's livestream onto a USB drive.

Ms. Snow hesitated. "The school can only deal with your reputation on campus and your work-study position. When it comes to the money at home, you need to preserve the evidence yourself."