Two Voices Within

"Mommy, don't listen to him! He's the one who appeared out of nowhere and started stealing all my nutrients! Now, he even wants to make you misunderstand me!"

Lucky's voice rang out, so aggrieved and pitiful that it made my heart ache. I quickly patted my belly to comfort him.

"Don't worry, Lucky. I won't believe in some random, unexplained voice!"

I looked around, trying to find the source of the other voice, only for it to appear again. "Mom, stop looking. I'm Sunny, I'm right inside your belly!

"You mustn't listen to him! In our past life, the moment he was born, he strangled me with an umbilical cord and caused you to bleed to death from difficult labor!"

The certainty and urgency in the voice made me hesitate. Were there really two babies inside me?

But at my last checkup, the doctor clearly said there was only one…

Seeing that I didn’t believe him, Sunny's voice softened, weak and childlike.

"Mom, go and check on Dad's cousin, Esther, and you'll know that I'm not lying to you! She's Lucky's real mother, and that evil lady's been in cahoots with Dad ages ago!

"They didn't want to face the shame of having people find out, and when they found out that Lucky had a deformity, they planned to use this pregnancy to kill us and cut off your bloodline!"

Sunny's words made my expression darken instantly.

My husband's cousin, Esther, had always been a thorn between us. He used to dote on her excessively, and we had nearly broken up because of it.

In the end, it was only because I got pregnant that he knelt before me, begging for another chance.

As the two voices in my womb argued, I called a private investigator, and the photos he sent back were like a bucket of water dumped over my head.

In the photos, Esther was strolling through luxury malls, arms full of shopping bags, nothing like the "sent away to suffer" story my husband had fed me!

I pulled out my last prenatal report. The words “cleft lip and palate” stabbed at my eyes.

Lucky's voice rang, carrying a hint of panic, "Mommy, he's lying to you! He's the one who killed you in our past life! If you weren't my actual mother, why would I help you so much?

"The benefits I brought you were real!"

Lucky was right. Within the three months he'd been guiding me, he'd managed to flip our family's assets tenfold.

Sensing my hesitation, Lucky continued, "Mommy, you'll know who's truly good to you at the auction in three days!"

Lucky sounded utterly confident, but Sunny shouted, "You can't go! You'll fall at the auction, leading to your miscarriage, and you'll bleed to death!"