After Letting Go of Helping Others, I Focused on Myself

The elderly lady looked at me with hope in her eyes, "Alexa, my daughter-in-law is still inside. Could you help me get her out?"

In my previous life, the neighbor's daughter-in-law wasn’t very talkative, but she would always exchange a few words with me whenever we crossed paths. We weren’t exactly close, but we weren’t strangers either.

From a distance, I saw her desperately struggling in the car seat, unable to unbuckle her seatbelt. Without a second thought, I rushed over to help.

But what happened afterward?

When she saw my amputated legs, she said I made her feel uncomfortable. Honestly, she might as well have just said I disgusted her.

Watching the flames not far away, I casually said, "Sorry, I don’t dare to help."

The fire grew larger and the car was on the verge of exploding. A crowd had gathered downstairs, but not a single person dared to intervene.

Inside the car, the woman's heart-wrenching cries for help echoed, "Someone, please save me! It hurts so much! Can anyone kind-hearted pull me out?"

Yet, no one dared to step forward.

Mrs. Grace, panting and carrying bags of rice, flour and oil, pleaded with me, "Alexa, even if this old lady has to beg you, please, help save my daughter-in-law, Bella."

I stared at her in confusion and asked, "She’s your daughter-in-law, not mine. If you’re not going to save her yourself, why expect others to? Even if I dared, I couldn’t. I have a heart condition and can’t run too fast. Looking at you, pulling out someone who weighs about 40 kilograms shouldn’t be much of a problem, so you should do it yourself."

What I said wasn’t wrong.

When the electric car caught fire, Mrs. Grace first scrambled to grab the rice, flour and oil she had just bought from the supermarket, hurriedly escaping from the car without a second thought for her daughter-in-law’s cries for help.

In her eyes, the rice and flour were more valuable than her daughter-in-law.

To her, Bella was nothing more than a brood hen meant to continue their family line.

In my previous life, she begged me to help because she saw that I lived alone without my parents around to back me up. If anything happened, she wouldn't be held responsible. She specifically picked on me, a young girl, knowing I was easy to manipulate.

Mrs. Grace immediately started shedding crocodile tears. "I'm just an old woman, what can I do? If I could still run, I would’ve saved her already! Bella was always the closest to you. She often talks about you at home. You can’t just stand by and watch her die at such a crucial moment, can you?"

Bella wasn’t close to me at all. She could exchange a few words with anyone, but she wasn’t truly close to anyone.

It was simply because their whole family liked to take advantage of others, always sneaky and dishonest. Bella would chat with us briefly and some neighbors, like me, were too soft to confront them. Even when we knew they took things from the hallway, we let it slide. After all, we saw each other often and exchanged a few words here and there.

But in my previous life, my genuine efforts were repaid with a knife to the heart.

I was determined to watch how this ungrateful family all met their bad ends, one by one.

As the fire grew uncontrollably larger, I finally suggested, "I can’t save her. You should call the fire department!"

Even if they called now, it would take at least ten minutes for them to arrive. By then, who knows if Bella could hold on.

Sure enough, Bella started struggling inside the car, her leg trapped between the seats.

An older woman in the crowd, eager for drama, chimed in, "Come on, we’re all neighbors. They’ve begged you like this, what’s the harm in helping? It’s not like you’ll die, right? If I were you, I’d risk my life to save her!"