It happened during a family dinner.
My six-year-old daughter suddenly shoved her hand into the scalding cheese fondue and started crying desperately.
“Mommy! My hand hurts! I can’t go on live-stream anymore! Please, Mommy, don’t hit me again! I’ll be a good and obedient girl, I promise!”
My husband’s face was dark with fury. He grabbed my phone and opened my gallery—only to find it filled with inappropriate photos of our daughter.
That was all it took. He beat me bloody with a threat. “If you ever lay a hand on Niah again, I’ll kill you!”
A few days later, he had to leave on a business trip. As he packed, our daughter clung to his leg, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Daddy, don’t go! Please don’t go! If you leave me alone, Mommy will have someone kidnap me! She’ll break my legs! She’ll cut out my tongue!”
Everyone thought she was just saying nonsense… until it happened—she really was kidnapped, her legs broken, her tongue cut out.
With what remaining strength my daughter had, she dipped her fingers in her own blood and wrote on the van’s floor.
[Mommy! She tried to kill me!]
Blinded by rage, my husband nearly beat me to death. In the end, his parents convinced him to divorce me and kick me out of the villa with nothing.
I stumbled through the streets, bleeding and broken, until rabid strays bit me.
That was how I died.
But then—I woke up… on the very first time my daughter accused me.
——
“Mommy, I want cheese fondue tonight!”
Her sweet little voice chirped beside me. I flinched. Then I turned and met her eyes.
Cold. Calculating. Like a cat playing with a mouse already too weak to run.
And I was that mouse.
A chill ran up my spine and settled at the base of my skull.
In my last life, I said yes. I made cheese fondue that night, and that gave her the perfect opportunity to hurt herself and pin it all on me.
I could still feel it—my body torn apart by rabid strays in the street, the helpless agony. But worst of all was the heartbreak.
She was my daughter. My own child. Why would she do that to me?
Just then, Priscilla, my mother-in-law, swept in, cradling her.
“Our sweet girl wants cheese fondue? Grandma will go buy ingredients right away!”
I forced a smile and steadied my voice.
“Mom, the teacher said Niah had a stomachache at school today. We should skip cheese fondue—maybe make something light for dinner instead.”
My daughter’s face twisted in outrage. Her voice cracked as she shouted, “Mommy’s lying! She said I’m a waste of money! She said I don’t deserve to eat good food! She said one day she’s gonna break my legs and cut out my tongue!”
She sobbed, trembling, and buried herself in Priscilla’s arms.
Harold, my father-in-law, who’d been reading the paper, looked up sharply and barked, “Your mom almost died giving birth to you, and this is how you repay her? You ungrateful little thing!”
Terrified, my daughter clung to Priscilla’s neck like her life depended on it.
“Grandma, I’m not lying! I don’t—I don’t wanna be kidnapped! Please save me!”
Priscilla gently stroked my daughter’s back, full of tender affection. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Grandma’s here. You’re safe.”
Then she turned to her husband with a light scold. “She’s just a kid. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. Let’s not take it too seriously.”
Finally, she looked back at me. “No cheese fondue, then. Go out and buy some groceries.”
I nodded at first—but then I caught the smug little smile creeping onto my daughter’s face.
I froze.
That smile. She had worn the same one in my last life.
It was because I left the house that she was able to twist the story, saying I used the grocery trip as a cover to meet the kidnappers. And wouldn’t you know it—they really did find a few strange numbers in my call history!
But not this time!
I pulled out my phone and opened the delivery app.
“It’s raining today, Mom. Let’s just get groceries delivered.”
Disappointment flashed in Niah’s eyes. She bit her lip, sulking in silence while I smiled to myself.
‘No cheese fondue. No grocery trip. No setup. Let’s see how she plans to twist things now.’
That night, Tyson Drummond, my husband, returned from his business trip. We all sat around the dinner table, eating quietly—just a normal family meal, almost peaceful.
