Double Rebirth: Her Midnight Plea After I Let Go

The day Willow Cheng was crowned Best Actress, I threw a lavish party to celebrate her victory.

She poisoned the wine, ensuring we would die together.

As the life drained from me, her eyes burned with a raw, blistering hatred. Why did you have to adopt me? My real mother, my rich, high-society mother, she came for me that day.

"You vile woman. If it weren't for you, we would have been reunited. I wouldn't have had to struggle for so long."

"If I could go back twenty years," she hissed, her voice a venomous whisper, "I would pray that you never came for me at all."

I died in a haze of confusion and righteous fury. When I opened my eyes again, I was twenty years in the past.

This time, I decided to grant Willow's wish. I would not adopt her.

What she didn't know, what she could never have known, was that her birth parents were already dead.

The searing pain in my stomach still felt terrifyingly real.

But then, a familiar voice cut through the fog. "Ms. Hayes, you see? This is Willow. She's the brightest child in the whole orphanage."

My eyes flew open.

I wasn't staring at the sterile white walls of a psychiatric ward. I was in the slightly damp, musty office of the orphanage.

Standing across from me was the beaming director.

And huddled in the corner was a small, seven-year-old girl. Clothes washed thin and pale, a smudge of dirt on her cheek.

Willow.

I had truly gone back twenty years. Back to the very day I had chosen to adopt her.

Before the shock of rebirth could fully register, the small figure moved.

This time, she didn't timidly clutch at my clothes, her eyes filled with a desperate hope that I would take her home.

Instead, she stared at me, her eyes churning with a venomous loathing that was horrifying in a child so young. It was as if she wasn't looking at the woman who was about to change her life, but at a sworn enemy.

"I'm not going with her!"

Willow's shriek was sharp and sudden. She scrambled backward until her back hit the peeling paint of the wall. She pointed a trembling finger at me, her voice shrill with rejection. "You evil woman! Get away from me! I'd rather die than be adopted by you!"

"I want my real parents to come for me!"

The director's smile froze on her face. The hand she had extended to pat Willow's head hung awkwardly in mid-air.

"Willow! What on earth are you saying?" the director stammered, sweat beading on her forehead. She turned to me, flustered. "Ms. Hayes, please don't mind her. She's usually such a well-behaved child. Maybe maybe she's not feeling well today. She's just talking nonsense."

"I'm not sick!" Willow snapped, her gaze like a poisoned dart. "I know exactly what I'm saying. I hate her! I don't want to go with her!"

I watched her, the way she looked at me as if I were a predator, and the last embers of warmth in my heart turned to ash.

Her dying words from our previous life echoed in my mind: If I could go back twenty years, I would pray that you never came for me at all.

So, she had been reborn too.

Fine.

If the feeling was mutual, it would save me the trouble of trying to rid myself of this ungrateful viper.

I smoothed down my dress, my expression a cool mask of indifference as I watched the little drama unfold.

"If the child is unwilling," I said, my voice light, devoid of any attachment, "then let's just forget it."

The director's face fell. "Ms. Hayes, she's a very talented girl. Please, reconsider"

"There's no need," I cut her off, my gaze sweeping one last time over the wary child. "You can't force a thing to grow where it doesn't want to. And I have no interest in raising a wolf that will one day bite the hand that feeds it."

At my words, Willow didn't look disappointed. A wave of relief washed over her, and her face lit up with a triumphant, manic glee.

Looking at her foolish expression, I couldn't help but find it amusing.

In our last life, in this very room, she had been a filthy, sobbing mess, clinging to my legs and begging me to take her away.

"Please, auntie," she'd cried, "take me with you. I'll be good. I'll repay you for the rest of my life."

I had pitied her, an orphan with no one in the world. I took her home and raised her as my own. I wasn't rich, but I worked three jobs to send her to the best acting schools, to help her chase her dream of becoming a star.

And what was my reward?

Twenty years of devotion meant nothing to her. She believed I was the one who had kept her from her wealthy birth parents. The very first thing she did after achieving her dream was to murder us both.

This time, I was morbidly curious to see how two piles of bones were going to come and take her home.

After leaving the director's office, I didn't leave the orphanage right away. I slipped into the shadows at the end of the hallway, watching the entrance through a grimy window.

Before long, a black sedan, not particularly expensive, pulled up to the gate. The driver revved the engine unnecessarily, as if desperate to be noticed.

The door opened, and a woman stepped out. Her hair was a mess of permed curls, and she was dripping with cheap, flashy jewelry. She looked like she'd just won the lottery, but I recognized the woman beneath the gaudy exterior.

Brenda, a woman from my old hometown.

In the last life, Brenda had moved away shortly after I brought Willow home. I never imagined that a brief, fleeting encounter could have left such a deep, twisted impression on Willow's mind for two decades.

But one thing I knew for sure: there was no way Brenda was Willow's birth mother.

Willow, however, saw her as a savior. She scrambled down the steps, her face plastered with the same practiced, red-carpet smile she'd worn in her past life. She threw herself at Brenda.

"Mom! I knew you'd come for me!" she wailed. "I'm your daughter, the one you left at this orphanage!"

Brenda stumbled back, startled. She looked down at the grimy child clinging to her and her face twisted in disgust. She shoved Willow away, brushing at imaginary dust on her clothes. "What's wrong with you, you little psycho? You're filthy! Get away from me!"

Willow fell to the ground, but she didn't seem to feel the pain. She was panicking. This wasn't how the grand family reunion was supposed to go.

She grabbed onto Brenda's leg, her voice cracking. "Mom, I'm not dirty! I'll be good! If you take me with you, I'll do anything! I can do laundry, I can cook! I'll be so obedient!"

"Please, don't leave me here!"

At the words "do anything," Brenda paused. She looked down at Willow again, her eyes cold and assessing, like a farmer inspecting livestock.

"You do look like a clever one," she mused. "And I could use an extra pair of hands around the house." Brenda sneered, nudging Willow with the toe of her shoe. "Fine. It's your lucky day. Come on."

Willow was ecstatic. She nodded frantically and scrambled into the "luxury" car without so much as a goodbye to the director.

Watching from the shadows, I almost laughed out loud.

I didn't know how Willow had gotten it into her head that Brenda was her mother. But I knew one thing for sure: this life was going to be very, very different for her.

Once the car was gone, I turned and left.

On my way home, I passed a bank. I took out the card I had prepared, the one that was supposed to pay for Willow's private school tuition and acting classes.

In the last life, I had scrimped and saved, sacrificing my own dreams to make hers come true. I had loved to sing. I had a good voice. But Willow always complained that my practicing disturbed her when she was trying to memorize her lines.

For her, I had silenced my own voice. For twenty years.

This time, without a moment's hesitation, I walked into the best vocal training center in the city.

I swiped the card, signed the forms, and looked at my own name on the receipt. I felt a lightness I hadn't felt in years.

This life, to hell with selfless devotion. I was going to live for myself.

The days that followed were a blur of happy, fulfilling activity. I practiced my singing, took care of my skin, and simply enjoyed life.

Then, one rainy night about two weeks later, a frantic, violent pounding on my door shattered the peace.

I opened it to find Brenda standing there, soaked to the bone, her face a mask of fury.

At her feet, tossed like a bag of garbage, was a small, crumpled figure.

It was Willow.

Her face was flushed, her breathing shallow. She was burning up, and her small body was covered in angry, purple bruises.

Brenda saw me and scowled. She pointed at the child on the ground. "The director told me you wanted to adopt this worthless thing. Take her! She's been running a fever for days. If she dies in my house, it'll bring bad luck."

"The little brat keeps babbling about not wanting to die. So, if you want to play the saint, she's all yours."

I didn't even glance at Willow. I took a deliberate step back, my disgust evident. "Brenda, I did consider adopting her. But as she made perfectly clear, she would rather die than have me as her mother."

I crossed my arms, a small, mocking smile playing on my lips. "Besides, since she has accepted you as her mother, this is a family matter. Whether she lives or dies in your house is none of my concern."

Brenda was speechless, her face turning shades of red and white. She raised her foot to kick the child on the ground. "You hear that, you little bitch? Nobody wants you!"

But then, Willow, delirious with fever, found a sudden burst of strength. She wrapped her arms around Brenda's muddy leg. Her lips were cracked and dry, her voice a hoarse rasp, but there was a strange, feverish intensity in her words.

"Mom don't leave me don't give me to that evil woman"

"I'll be famous I'm going to be an award-winning actress I'll make so much money for you buy you a big house"

Even in this state, she was still clinging to her delusions of grandeur.

Brenda was furious. She kicked Willow away. "Actress? You're delirious! You've fried your brain!"

"You're nothing but a drain on my resources!"

But for all her blustering, Brenda didn't dare actually kill the child. We were still neighbors, for now. If something happened, the police would come knocking.

Muttering curses under her breath, she grabbed Willow by the collar and dragged her out into the rain like a dead dog. "I'll take you to some back-alley clinic and get you a drip. If you don't get better after that, you can just rot for all I care!"

The sound of Willow's faint pleas and Brenda's harsh curses faded into the night.

I watched them go, my face a cold, blank slate. Then I closed the door and went back to my singing practice.

Willow, it turned out, was a survivor. After three days of a raging fever, dumped in a shady, unlicensed clinic with a cocktail of unknown drugs pumped into her veins, she somehow pulled through.

But fate, while sparing her life, had collected its due. The prolonged fever had damaged her throat and her nerves. She was left with a permanent lisp and slurred speech. Forget being an actress; she could barely hold a normal conversation.

A few weeks later, Brenda, either on the run from debt collectors or having found a new get-rich-quick scheme, packed up and prepared to leave town.

On the day they were leaving, Willow came to see me. She was wearing some tattered old clothes she must have found somewhere, but she held her head high, like a defeated but defiant rooster.