I died, and the killer turned my corpse into a wax figure, giving it to my brother as a birthday gift. That day, they celebrated wildly next to my body, even smearing cake on my face, laughing and saying “Happy Birthday.” It’s as if they remembered today was my birthday too, but how could they remember? After all, they didn’t even know I was dead, and even if they did, they probably wouldn’t care. The day I died, it was raining heavily, probably heavier than any storm you’ve ever seen. I felt like even my floating soul was soaked through. I hurried back home, hesitating at the doorstep, afraid that water droplets from my body would stain the doormat and Mom would yell at me again. Oh right, I’m a ghost now. Even if I had water on me, it wouldn’t drip onto the mat. I don’t have to fear Mom scolding me anymore. I happily stomped on the doormat, and when I was done, I entered the house. The living room was warm with the heater on. It felt so cozy. My brother suddenly looked in my direction, tilted his head in confusion, then went back to playing his game. The aroma of braised pork and cola chicken wings wafted from the kitchen, along with Mom’s voice. “Leo, call Lily. Why isn’t she back yet?” Mom still cares about me. “If she doesn’t come back soon, tell her to never come back. Just asking her to buy a gift for Ryan, and she’s making such a fuss. It would’ve been better to raise a pig than to raise her.” I had earned $1,200 for tuition from part-time jobs and summer work, and Mom wanted me to give $1,000 to buy a phone for my brother. She even asked me to pay $200 for household expenses, not leaving me a single penny, indirectly forcing me to drop out of school. “If it weren’t for her, Ryan wouldn’t be… like this…” Mom started mumbling complaints about how I caused my brother to become mentally challenged. I could recite it by heart now. It was always about how I stole my brother’s nutrients in the womb, and how I rushed to be born first, causing my brother to be born later and suffer oxygen deprivation. I weighed five pounds at birth, while my brother was just over three pounds. But I was just a fetus then, what did I know? I sat on the sofa, looking up at the Ultraman-themed birthday backdrop. It read “Happy 20th Birthday Ryan” and had his photo printed on it. My brother and I were born on the same day. It was raining that day, so I was named Lily Rain. Because my brother was born a minute later than me, he suffered oxygen deprivation and almost didn’t make it. Mom and Dad named him Ryan Long, hoping he would live a long life. Dad was unpacking a very tall and large package: “We can’t have raised her for over a decade for nothing. She still needs to come back to take care of Ryan. Otherwise, what will happen to Ryan after we’re gone?” My brother was playing Snake on his phone. He was really good at it, the snake’s body quickly filling up the phone screen, reaching first place. “Ah!” Dad’s scream startled Mom who was cooking in the kitchen and my brother, who was so shocked that his snake hit another snake, ending the game. He stomped his feet, shouting and throwing a tantrum, “I’m dead, I’m dead.” Dad quickly tried to calm him down: “Don’t say such unlucky things. Even if your sister dies, you won’t.” Mom came out and was also startled, because Dad had finished unpacking that big package. It was a wax figure, a lifelike wax figure that looked exactly like me, as if crafted by a master wax artist. I looked at the smiling wax figure and trembled in fear. This wasn’t a wax figure, it was my corpse!
Looking at my corpse wax figure, smiling but unable to hide the fear, still holding a phone in its right hand. I remembered. I remembered how I died. I was working as a housekeeper to earn money, and the killer was the client I worked for yesterday. He wore glasses and looked gentle and refined, seeming very kind. He said he had been looking forward to meeting me for a long time. He said tomorrow was my birthday, so he wanted to make me a birthday gift. I asked him strangely if we knew each other. The killer said he knew me from a post titled “What does it feel like when your parents don’t love you?”. My answer was “Probably that if I died somewhere, they wouldn’t know for a month, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care.” Because of a casual answer, I was targeted by the killer. Really, it’s so helpless and scary to be alone on the internet. The killer looked gentle, and even when he killed me, he was gentle. He was afraid I would be in pain, so he fed me sleeping pills, gave me anesthesia, and then drained my blood. He was even gentler than when my parents beat me. He really made me cry to death. Before I died, he let me call my parents. He said if they called me “precious daughter” just once, he would let me go. But Dad didn’t answer. I called ten times, and he never picked up. Mom answered quickly, but she started scolding me as soon as she picked up, yelling at me for not coming home to cook and for not taking good care of my brother. She cried and scolded, “How did I give birth to such a jinx like you? I should have drowned you in the toilet when you were born.” With the anesthesia, I couldn’t feel the pain in my wrists, but waves of pain kept hitting my heart. “Mom, I’m dying. Can you call me your precious daughter just once?” Mom cursed again, mixed with the sound of her cooking. “If you want to die, buy your brother’s phone first, then go die. Even if you die, I’ll arrange a ghost marriage for you and use the bride price to find a wife for your brother.” “Precious daughter? What a joke. You’re nothing but a jinx.” The call ended, and with it, my chance to live. As my blood drained away, my corpse still held the phone. Dad received a timed text message sent from my phone by the killer and read it out loud. “Mom, Dad, this is the last gift I’ll ever give to my brother, an unforgettable gift. Do you like it?” Mom, holding a spatula, stared at my corpse wax figure, very angry. “Yesterday she said she was going to die, and today she sends a wax figure back. Why didn’t she send her corpse back? I could have at least burned some money for her.” I stood next to the corpse wax figure, mimicking its pose of holding up a phone. Mom, this is my corpse. Mom, please burn more money for me. I was already so poor when I was alive, having to work as a child laborer since middle school. I don’t want to have to work after death too. Mom, you need to burn some clothes for me too. My clothes are all wet, and it’s very cold. I’ve tried to wring out my clothes several times, but they’re still soaking wet. Good thing I’m a ghost, the water droplets on my clothes stay on me forever. Otherwise, if they dripped on the floor, Mom would scold me again. Like when I was little, it was raining outside, and I waited until dark, but Mom never came to pick me up. I walked home in the rain by myself, and the water dripping from my body dirtied the doormat and wet the floor. When my brother came out, he slipped and fell, and Mom scolded me, beating me hard with a clothes hanger. Dad just stood by, smoking, and advised Mom. “Don’t hit the kid’s face. If you leave scars, we won’t be able to sell her for a good price when she grows up.” He talked about me like I was a pig being raised for slaughter. Oh, in their eyes, I was even less than a pig. After all, a pig doesn’t come out of Mom’s belly, doesn’t steal nutrients from a brother in Mom’s womb. Dad looked at my corpse wax figure and cursed it as unlucky, wanting to throw it away. But my brother liked it very much, hugging the corpse wax figure and not letting go. “This is my sister, my sister. We can’t throw her away. I want to play with my sister.” Because my brother was mentally challenged, as innocent as a child, our sibling relationship was still okay. In fact, it was my brother’s innocence that repeatedly healed the wounds I suffered in this family. When Mom hit me, my brother would clumsily protect me, saying, “No hit… sister… hurt.” When Mom wouldn’t give me food, my brother would secretly hide chicken legs for me to eat, always getting his clothes greasy. When Dad forced me to drop out of school to work, and I cried all night, it was still my brother who clumsily comforted me, making me laugh, threatening to run away from home to force Dad to let me go to school. My suffering wasn’t because of my brother, but because of my parents who didn’t love me. My brother wanted to keep my corpse wax figure, and our parents, who indulged him in everything, certainly had no objection. My brother happily brought out his paints and started coloring the wax figure. He tilted his head and looked at me, as if he could see me, and asked, “What color does sister like?” “Green.” I answered, and my brother picked out green paint. I like green because it symbolizes endless life. Mom stared at the wax figure for a long time, until she smelled something burning in the kitchen and cursed as she walked away. Dad took out his phone and called me. “Ring… Ring…” The sound of the call connecting was like my heartbeat. I became hopeful. The phone in the hand of the corpse wax figure wasn’t a model, it was my phone! Would Mom and Dad discover that I was dead, that this was my corpse? Would they regret it? Would they kneel in front of my corpse, crying bitterly, regretting how they never treated me well in these twenty years?
Unfortunately, the phone didn’t ring, and the screen didn’t light up. Dad tried calling twice and then gave up, only cursing that I didn’t even come back for my brother’s birthday, not caring about my safety or whether I was alive or dead. They wouldn’t wait for me to come back for dinner, let alone wait for me to cut the cake together. They ate the tender braised pork knuckles and delicious cola chicken wings. My brother even had a bowl of longevity noodles and two red eggs. I sat next to my brother, pretending I was part of this family, my hand passing through the chopsticks, pretending to pick up a piece of braised pork to eat. I closed my eyes, imagining how delicious it must be. It should taste similar to restaurant food. I had never eaten Mom’s cooking, and I wasn’t allowed at the table. Mom would only put the gnawed bones and leftover food in a copper basin, like feeding a dog, and leave it for me to eat. Indeed, all these years they had treated me like a dog. To them, giving birth to me and raising me was the greatest kindness, and I should be grateful and not ask for more. I wondered if they discovered I was dead, would they make me a birthday feast too, order a cake for me? Before they finished eating, my brother started clamoring for cake. Mom and Dad put a birthday crown on my brother, lit the birthday candles, and sang the birthday song. “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…” “Happy 20th birthday, Ryan. Make a wish quickly, be sure to wish that you’ll become smart, exchange your sister’s life for your intelligence.” I stood by, smiling bitterly. My brother and I were twins, and every year on our birthday, Mom and Dad would mention me, but not to wish me well. Instead, they would have my brother make a birthday wish every year to exchange my life for his intelligence. In the past, I was always hurt by such words, but this time I sincerely hoped my brother’s wish would come true. I was already dead, it shouldn’t be for nothing, right? “Mom, this time brother’s wish will come true.” But my brother shook his head, “Don’t want sister to die, want sister to have happy birthday.” In this family, only my brother remembered that today was my birthday too. Mom and Dad remembered too, but they didn’t care, which hurt me even more. Mom angrily said with a stern face: “You can’t. You can only wish to exchange your sister’s life for your intelligence.” My brother didn’t understand what “life” meant, but he was very stubborn. This year, he just wouldn’t make that wish. It’s strange, when I was alive, my naive brother happily made this wish every year. Now that I’m dead, my brother refuses to make this wish. My brother insisted on not making the wish, and Mom got so angry she hit the back of his hand. My brother cried pitifully and suddenly lay on the ground, rolling around. My six-foot-tall, handsome brother was lying on the ground, throwing a tantrum and crying like a three-year-old. It really didn’t look good, and it wasn’t right. It was painful to watch. I crouched next to my brother, comforting him like I used to. “Brother, make the wish quickly. Sister is already dead, this time the wish will surely come true.” My kind and innocent brother should get better, should become smart. I don’t know if my brother heard what I said, he just kept throwing a tantrum. “I don’t want to be smart, I just want sister, I want sister.” Mom was so distressed she wiped away tears, then started cursing me again with all sorts of nasty words. Dad looked at my brother rolling on the ground, very annoyed. “It’s just a wish. We’ve been making this wish for twenty years, and we haven’t seen Lily die or Ryan become smart.” “If wishes really came true, I would have killed Lily long ago.” Dad angrily grabbed a handful of cake and smeared it on the neck of the corpse wax figure, the action really looked like killing someone. It’s not surprising. If they could choose, they would have preferred that I was the one who came out late, that I was the one who suffered oxygen deprivation and became mentally challenged. If I had been born later that year, if I had been the one with brain damage, would they have treated me the way they treated my brother, never giving up, spending all their money to give me rehabilitation training? Look at them, they know today is my birthday too, but they don’t bless me at all. Instead, they wish they could kill me. Seeing Dad’s action, my brother stopped crying, got up and grabbed some cake to smear on the wax figure’s mouth. “It’s sister’s birthday, eat cake, sister, eat cake quickly.” My brother was happy, and so were Mom and Dad. They all grabbed cake and smeared it on the wax figure. They were very happy, they were celebrating wildly. Perhaps they felt relieved that I was dead, and were celebrating. I didn’t care. I just pretended they were celebrating my birthday. This was the first time Dad, Mom, and my brother celebrated my birthday together. I happily sang the birthday song to myself: “Happy 20th birthday, Lily Rain.” “My wish is…” I seemed to have no wishes. I guess a dead person’s wish would probably be to have a better life in the next reincarnation. But I don’t want to be human anymore. So I’ll wish that in my next life, I won’t be human. I’ll be a cat or a dog, even a pig or a duck, anything but human. Being human is too tiring. After making my wish, I closed my eyes to blow out the candles. The candles went out, and the room suddenly went dark. When candles go out, wishes are supposed to come true. Ding dong. The sudden sharp doorbell sound startled my parents again. Dad pushed Mom out, telling her to answer the door. I followed behind Mom to open the door. Mom only opened half the door, saw it was a strange man, and asked warily, “Who are you looking for?” Seeing who it was, I fearfully stepped in front of Mom. Because this was the killer who murdered me!
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