My sister and I are both weightlifting athletes. After our family went bankrupt, my mother made us draw straws. Whoever drew the marked one would marry her friend’s intellectually disabled son. I was the one who drew it. From that day on, I gave up my own future. I became a full-time wife and caretaker, looking after both families while enduring constant criticism and abuse. Meanwhile, my sister climbed all the way to the national team and stood on the podium, bathed in glory. When I finally escaped and tried to start a new life, my sister found me. She cut my Achilles tendons with a knife. “Maya, if you leave, who will take care of the family?” When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day of the drawing. My sister Melody and I had been training as athletes since we were girls. After Mom gave birth to two daughters in a row, Dad cursed his “bad luck” and left for good. I’d always worked odd jobs to help make ends meet, but then Mom got laid off. “You two are grown up now. It’s time to take responsibility and share the family burden.” Mom’s version of “taking responsibility” was simple: only one daughter could continue her athletic career and education. The other would marry her friend’s intellectually disabled son, securing a large payment for our struggling family. Before I could even speak, Melody clutched my arm and began to plead. “Come on, Maya, you always give in to me. Let me have this one too!” Looking at the seemingly innocent Melody, my body instinctively pulled away before my brain could even react. In my previous life, I was forced to give up my education and spent every day caring for my mentally disabled husband and demanding mother-in-law. Even with my strong physique, I was tortured into exhaustion and developed gray hair prematurely. When I was heavily pregnant and clearing the dinner table, I saw Melody on TV-selected all the way to the national team, standing gloriously on the podium. Later, when I finally had some savings and wanted to restart my training, Melody cut my Achilles tendons with a knife. “Maya, if you leave, who’s going to take care of the family?” Living this life over again, I would never hand over my future again! Seeing Mom and Melody both staring at me, I understood completely. They both wanted me to take on this “responsibility.” “Sure! Good things should always go to Melody, so-” Before Melody could get too excited, I continued. “So, I’ll let Melody have Mrs. Lewis’s son!” Melody’s face looked like she’d swallowed a cockroach. Her mouth twitched. “That’s not what I meant…” I pretended to suddenly understand. “Oh! So you think Mrs. Lewis’s son is mentally disabled and not good enough for you?” “What!? How can you say that about someone…” “Enough!” Mom cut off our conversation. She stared at me with a sinister look. She’d originally wanted me to volunteer to give in to Melody, so she wouldn’t be blamed for it. She hadn’t expected me to dodge it. “In that case, we’ll draw lots!” Mom made two slips of paper and put them in a black box, marking each with either a red or black pen. Whoever drew the red slip would have to end their education and marry Mom’s friend’s mentally disabled son. That single draw had been the starting point of all my suffering in my past life. This time, I must not pick the red slip.
I took a deep breath and slowly reached my hand into the black box. Melody stared at me excitedly, her expression gradually overlapping with her face from my previous life. Just as my hand was about to go all the way in, I suddenly pulled it out. “I thought about it, Melody. You draw first! I should let you go first, right?” Since childhood, Mom had instilled in me that I should always give in to Melody in everything. So much so that in my previous life, I foolishly handed over my bright future! Melody’s smile became somewhat twisted. “No, Maya, you draw first. You don’t need to give in to me this time!” I continued to defer. “No, how can I do that? You draw first. I’ll draw after you.” “No, you draw first…” “Don’t be shy, you draw first…” With a “clatter,” the black box fell during our pushing and shoving. Both slips of paper fell out. Both were red! This meant that whoever drew first, no matter which one they picked, would draw the red slip that meant marrying the mentally disabled husband! Mom’s face darkened. With her scheme exposed, Melody just collapsed on the floor and began to wail. “I told you to draw first! You’re my sister, why won’t you give in to me! I won’t get married, I want to go to school!” Melody, who usually skipped classes all the time, suddenly loved studying. I said in surprise, “Melody, you don’t want to marry him, but I don’t want to either. How could you deliberately try to harm me?” Melody froze for a few seconds, as if she hadn’t expected me to say this. Then she continued slapping the floor. “I don’t care! That idiot drools all the time, it’s disgusting. I’m not marrying him!” I sneered inwardly. So you think it’s disgusting too. Melody made such a fuss that it reached the village committee. After the village chief sorted out the whole story, he pointed at Mom’s nose and scolded, “What era are we living in! Still marrying off daughters for money!” “Your daughters are only in high school, you know that!? Human trafficking is a crime, you know that!?” Mom said weakly, “I’m their mother…” The village chief was so angry he leaned back. “If we catch this kind of thing again, next time the police will come and throw you in jail!” He consoled us. “Girls, don’t worry. Study in peace. If you don’t have enough for tuition, the village committee will provide it!” “I heard you’re both weightlifters? Train hard. If you make it to the Olympics in the future, our village will be honored!” After being lectured by the village chief, Mom reluctantly let us continue our education. And after the plan was completely exposed, Melody stopped pretending and started targeting me everywhere.
Since we needed to train intensively, we started boarding at school this semester. The dorm manager let us choose rooms. “There’s still one on the 2nd floor and one on the 6th floor…” “I want the 2nd floor!” Melody quickly rushed up to grab the key, then looked at me provocatively. I shrugged and took the key to the 6th floor room. In the days that followed, any chore involving stairs, such as delivering materials to the teachers, Melody found a way to push onto me with one excuse after another. I knew exactly what she was doing. We were weightlifters. Our training already placed enormous strain on our knees. Melody wanted to pile on more damage by forcing me to climb stairs constantly. Once they were shot, I’d be eliminated. Problem solved. Melody bragged to her friend. “Maya’s been climbing so many extra stairs these past few days, her knees must be toast!” “Once she gets eliminated from the team, she’ll have to marry that disgusting idiot!” Her friend scratched her head. “But she seems to be training pretty well lately. The coach even praised her!” Melody frowned. “That’s impossible. Even normal people can’t handle climbing that many stairs, let alone us weightlifters!” She thought for a moment, suddenly understanding. “I know! She must be pretending!” “Maya is really good at pretending! Just wait a few more days, the effects will definitely show!” Melody waited. She watched my snatch and clean-and-jerk weights climb, listened to the coach’s growing praise, seethed as my name made the shortlist for the city team. Finally, she cracked. Snatching up her phone, she vented to a friend training in another city. “What is going on? Are Maya’s knees made of iron? How come after all those stairs, there is no effect at all?” Poor Melody. She never learned that with proper form, stair climbing is actually good for your knees. With correct form, climbing stairs not only doesn’t damage your knees, it can even improve cardiovascular function. After climbing stairs for so long, even my long-distance running had become smoother. Even when going down stairs, which does cause some knee strain, I would rest after every few floors to give my muscles time to recover. Melody didn’t like studying theory in her daily life. As an athlete, she knew less than a fitness instructor. She was furiously tapping at her phone, oblivious to the banana peel on the ground. Her foot landed squarely on it, and down she went. “Aaah-!” I saw it all from upstairs and heard the continued screams. I shook my head If you want to ruin your knees, falling while texting is far more effective than just climbing stairs. After Melody’s fall injury, she quieted down for a while. Just a few days after she recovered, she was sneaking around again, up to some new scheme. But I was busy training and had no time to worry about her. I concentrated, gripped the barbell, took a deep breath, and lifted it in one go! “You’re amazing! You broke the record again!” The team members cheered and exclaimed for me, but the coach frowned slightly. “Maya, do that movement again.”
The coach was always serious, and the others didn’t dare make a sound. Though I didn’t understand why, I did it again. After watching, the coach thought for a moment, then asked me to take off my shoe and give it to him. He examined it carefully and pointed to a subtle detail. “What’s wrong with your shoe? The sole is higher on one side than the other. The left sole looks like it cracked and someone just stuffed something in there randomly.” Others crowded around to look, amazed. “It really is! You can’t even tell without looking closely! Coach, how did you know?” The coach said, “When I watched Maya do the snatch just now, something seemed off about her lower limb alignment.” “It’s fine short-term, but long-term misalignment will definitely cause disorder or even wear in all the joints.” The lifespan of joints is the lifespan of an athlete’s career. Fortunately, the coach noticed. Even I would have difficulty detecting such a slight change in alignment. The coach frowned at me again. “Maya, you’re not so afraid of spending money that you won’t throw away broken shoes, are you?” “If you need money, ask me! If I see you wearing these garbage shoes again, I’ll throw them away myself!” The coach was strict, but he treated the team members very well. In my previous life, when I drew the red lot and was forced to quit school, the coach urgently sought out many leaders and personally vouched for me, trying to keep me on the team. Although I was eventually forcibly taken away by Mom, I’ve always been grateful to the coach. My teammates also looked worried. “Maya, if you’re out of money, tell us. Don’t ruin your health. Everyone’s counting on you to get results.” “Mm, don’t worry.” I comforted them. I looked at the shoes, my eyes darkening. I should know who did this. Sure enough, a few days later, when I went to the locker room to change shoes, I heard a strange sound. I picked up the sneaker and turned it upside down. Clink! Clink! Sharp nails fell out one by one. Melody probably thought that just damaging my shoe heel was too slow, so she went big and stuffed nails into my shoes! Looking closely, some of the nails even had rust on them! If I wasn’t careful and stepped on them, at minimum I’d get stabbed, at worst I’d get tetanus! Melody knew that soon, the national team would come to select people. Once you enter the national team, you become a candidate for the Olympics. No matter what, even if she had to use every method possible, Melody didn’t want me to be selected by the national team! I picked up a nail and with a light effort, broke it in half. …… A few days later, a piercing shriek erupted from the locker room. “What happened?” Everyone was startled and rushed over. Inside, my sneakers lay tossed across the floor. And in Melody’s hand was a huge mousetrap!
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