My daughter always loves to tell the “truth.” I asked her, “Is Mommy pretty?” She said, “Mom, I’m telling the truth—you’re the ugliest mom in the whole kindergarten.” When my mother-in-law pointed at my nose and called me wasteful for buying my daughter an expensive backpack, I asked her how she felt about it. She said, “Honestly? I’m actually pretty happy when you get yelled at, Mom.” My husband jokingly asked her if she’d take care of me when I got old. She said, “I’m not taking care of her. When she’s old, she should just die already.” My heart sank. But she just smiled with her eyes crinkling: “I’m just telling the truth!” Later, when officers came for a household registration check, they asked my daughter a few routine questions. Once again, she told the “truth.” But this time, she regretted it for the rest of her life. **01** During the household registration check, police officers came to our door. My seven-year-old daughter blinked her big eyes and asked: “Why do you need to register all this?” The officer ruffled my daughter’s hair: “It’s for government policy, and also to prevent human trafficking.” My daughter nodded, then suddenly her face lit up with realization: “Oh, I get it! You’re looking for traffickers! That’s my mom, isn’t it?” “She said it herself yesterday—she kidnapped me!” The officer’s smile instantly froze on his face. I stared at my daughter in shock, catching the cunning flash in her eyes as my mind went numb. My daughter had always enjoyed saying these “truths” to cause me pain and embarrassment. Yesterday I wouldn’t let her eat too many snacks, so she said I was an evil mother and that she didn’t want to be my daughter. I’d been angry at the time: “You’re right, you’re not my daughter. I kidnapped you!” She’d immediately said she didn’t believe it. But I never expected that today she’d take the very thing she claimed not to believe and present it as “the truth” to the police. The officer’s expression as he looked at me had already changed. I forced out a dry laugh: “She was misbehaving yesterday, so I said something I didn’t mean. I didn’t think she’d take it seriously.” The officer’s brow finally relaxed, and he told my daughter: “Sweetie, you can’t joke about things like this. If your mom gets mistaken for a trafficker, she could go to jail.” When I saw my daughter nod, my racing heart calmed down. I thought that would be the end of it. But the next second, my daughter’s face turned completely sincere: “But my mom can’t have children. If I wasn’t kidnapped, how else did I get here?” The officer’s gaze became scrutinizing and suspicious as he looked at me. I quickly explained: “After I had my daughter, I got an IUD. When she says I can’t have children, that’s probably what she means.” I tugged at my daughter’s hand, signaling her to stop talking. But she wouldn’t listen: “No, Mom couldn’t have kids even when she first got married, but I’m already this old.” I didn’t know how a seven-year-old girl could think of this angle. But when you examined her words closely, it was hard not to become suspicious. My husband and I had been married for six years, and I’d had an IUD for six years—so how could we have a seven-year-old daughter? The officer had obviously thought of this too, and his expression grew serious. “Let me see the child’s birth certificate.” My heart dropped. We didn’t have a birth certificate for my daughter. Six years ago, I’d desperately rescued her from a trafficker—she’d been a kidnapped child. When the police pulled up her biological parents’ file, they were too shocked to speak. My husband’s and my expressions went through several changes. Our only thought at the time was: “If we send this child back to her biological parents, living might be worse than death for her.” My husband and I couldn’t bear it, so we’d raised her until now. My daughter probably thought what I’d said was just something said in anger, but she didn’t know that angry words could also be the truth. We hadn’t told her because we were afraid she’d feel like she was living under someone else’s roof. But now, if I didn’t come clean, I might actually be taken away by the police. Just as I was about to speak, my daughter suddenly shouted: “Oh! I just remembered!” “Mom got pregnant before marriage! She got pregnant with me first, then got married! That’s what adults mean when they talk about being improper before marriage!” I froze in place. If what my daughter said were actually true, I’d probably want to crawl into a hole right now. But my silence at this moment was due to a chill in my heart. My daughter thought she’d hurt me, and the corners of her mouth curved up with excitement. “Mom, I’m just telling the truth to help clear things up. Don’t be mad at me, okay?” The officer’s complicated gaze withdrew from me as he continued registering information. In a corner no one was watching, my hands clenched tight, desperately suppressing the surge of emotions. This wasn’t the first time my daughter had done something like this… **02** When she was in kindergarten, she often praised other people’s mothers in front of me, saying how beautiful they were. I asked her, “Isn’t Mommy beautiful?” But my daughter stared right into my eyes and said, “Mom’s not beautiful at all!” “Mom is the ugliest mom in the whole kindergarten!” I froze instantly. Seeing my daughter’s eyes smiling and looking so happy, I couldn’t help but say: “When you talk like that, it really hurts Mommy’s feelings.” But unexpectedly, my daughter said very seriously: “But teacher says good children should always tell the truth!” I was speechless for a moment, feeling vaguely that something was off. Logically, children should have a natural filter when it comes to the people who raised them, including their appearance. But my daughter seemed different. Later, when my daughter started elementary school, I spent a hundred dollars on an Elsa princess backpack she liked. When my mother-in-law found out the price, she pointed at my nose and called me wasteful. But my daughter treated her grandmother’s scolding as background noise and spun around dancing in the living room. I couldn’t help but ask my daughter: “You heard Grandma yelling at me. Don’t you have any thoughts about that?” My daughter’s eyes rolled around, and finally she looked at me intently: “I do! I feel really happy!” Seeing the genuine smile on my daughter’s face, my expression instantly froze. My daughter stared at me for a long time, then said: “Mom, don’t be angry. I’m just telling the truth.” Last month, my daughter got sick and I took care of her around the clock for a whole month. My husband saw that I’d lost a lot of weight and asked my daughter tenderly, “Mom took care of you growing up. Will you take care of Mom when she’s old?” My daughter glanced at me, pouted and said: “No way! When Mom gets old, she should just die already!” My husband’s body stiffened, and the color drained completely from my face. What’s worse, when my daughter saw our reaction, she actually started dancing around happily. I didn’t say another word the whole way home. My daughter even asked me: “Mom, are you unhappy again because of my truth?” That night, I barely slept at all. My husband also tossed and turned, and suddenly said in the silence: “What she says… it’s probably just jokes, right?” Even he didn’t sound certain. Every time I was in pain because of my daughter’s words, a glint of secret pleasure would flash in her eyes. Then she’d use the same trick again, blocking any response from me with “I’m just telling the truth.” Thinking of this, I could barely control my emotions. I quickly opened the door, wanting to see the officer out. “Officer!” My daughter called out just in time to stop the officer who had one foot out the door. “If I find out Mom really is a trafficker, can I call the police?” The officer looked at my daughter with a complicated expression, then looked at me. Finally, he slipped a contact card into my daughter’s hand before leaving. **03** After the police left, my daughter tilted her head and studied me. When she saw that my expression hadn’t changed, disappointment flashed in her eyes. I couldn’t help but ask my daughter: “Why did you say those things to the officer just now?” My daughter put her hands on her hips and tilted her head back, looking completely matter-of-fact: “I’m a good kid who tells the truth!” “You should blame yourself, Mom! You’re the one who said I was kidnapped when you got angry!” Only then did I truly confirm that she’d told the police on purpose, intending to punish me for what I’d said yesterday in anger. I clenched my fists and asked her: “What if Mom really did take you from a trafficker, but because your real parents were bad people, I didn’t return you to them? Would you really call the officer and have Mom sent to jail?” My daughter nodded without hesitation. “Of course! Mom, I’m a good kid who tells the truth!” My heart instantly sank to rock bottom. I don’t know when my husband came back, but he’d been standing in the doorway for a while, his face frighteningly dark. But he still suppressed his emotions to comfort me: “Maybe… she’ll grow out of it.” My daughter cheered up again, completely ignoring our pain. I couldn’t help but think: if my husband and I worked hard our whole lives only to raise an ungrateful wolf, why not cut our losses now? But after raising her for so many years, I still wanted to give her one last chance. I looked at the business card on the table and deliberately said: “Lucy, you really were kidnapped by me. In the safe at home, there’s still your original file—it was taken from your biological parents’ household registration.” “If you keep using ‘telling the truth’ to hurt us, your dad and I are going to send you back to your biological parents.” After hearing my words, fear appropriate for her age finally appeared on my daughter’s young face. She asked my husband urgently: “Dad, is it true?” My husband suppressed his irritation: “Your mom’s just joking with you.” The panic on my daughter’s face gradually faded. She pouted at me: “I knew it wasn’t true! I wish I really did have other parents! I hate you, Mom!” My husband’s expression darkened further. But her attention was on me. I cooperatively showed a hurt expression, and only then did she break into a smile. In that moment, what was there left for me to understand? My daughter had always thought she was our biological child, so she hurt me again and again without fear of consequences. My heart turned completely cold. That night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I suddenly heard the sound of someone turning the bedroom door handle. A small figure crept into my bedroom. After a minute, that figure left my room. From outside the room came a deliberately hushed child’s voice. “Hello, is this the police? I’m telling the truth—my mom really is a trafficker. The evidence is hidden in the safe. You need to come arrest her!” **04** The police arrived incredibly fast. I’d barely put on my jacket when the door was broken down from outside. My daughter ran crying into the officer’s arms, pointing at me with a frightened face: “My mom is a trafficker! Mom said I was kidnapped!” The officer didn’t notice, but I clearly saw the gleam in my daughter’s eyes. It was that look of smug satisfaction, knowing she could use “the truth” to get me again. The officer pressed his baton against my shoulder, his voice full of authority: “Please open the safe and let us take a look.” My husband was woken by the commotion and rushed out. When he heard “safe,” he instinctively panicked. “You can’t open it!” Seeing this, the officer signaled his colleagues to pick the lock. I saw the tools scattered on the floor and looked at my daughter. “Lucy, Dad already told you this afternoon it was just a joke. Why did you still call the police? Is that what telling the truth means?” But my daughter pressed her lips shut tight, not mentioning a word of what my husband had said. I looked at my daughter meaningfully. “You’ll regret it when they open the safe.” My daughter pursed her lips and let out a heavy huff. “Mom can never tell the difference between jokes and the truth. I’m punishing you, Mom.” “From now on, Mom will be like Lucy and only tell the truth.” The police broke through the first lock on the safe. The safe opened, revealing a sealed small box inside. I asked my daughter, “If it’s proven that you’re not my daughter, will you go back to your biological parents?” My daughter answered quickly: “Yes!” “Every time I tell the truth, Mom gets unhappy. I hate you, Mom!” Whatever small bit of compassion I still had for her completely vanished. The sealed box was a high-density container I’d purchased—very difficult to pry open. I watched the officer sweating profusely as he worked on it, then spoke up: “I can open it with the password, as long as Lucy signs a termination of adoption agreement with me.” My daughter didn’t understand what a termination of adoption agreement was, but she noticed that I really didn’t want the box opened, so she quickly nodded. She pressed her handprint on the agreement. I entered my daughter’s birthday and opened the small box. Three documents lay inside. The first was an adoption agreement. The second was a news report from when I’d rescued her from traffickers six years ago. The third was information about her biological parents. When the officer saw the first document, he said nothing. When he saw the second document, his expression was shocked. He read it over several times, and when he looked up, his eyes were full of admiration: “You risked your life to rescue a child from traffickers? That’s incredibly brave!” My daughter heard the officer praising me instead of criticizing me, and even giving me a thumbs up. She froze in place. The officer didn’t marvel for long. Due to his professional training, he quickly opened the third file. With just one glance, he froze. As if unable to believe it, he suddenly looked up at me. “This… this… are you sure? The child’s biological parents?” “You’re really going to send her back to them?” The other officers who hadn’t seen the file didn’t understand. They all went over to look. The next instant, they all simultaneously looked at my daughter with sympathy. Everyone was waiting for my answer. I just closed my eyes and nodded: “The termination agreement is signed. There’s no going back.” In this scenario, my daughter seemed to suddenly understand everything. Terror appeared on her face.
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