The Billionaire's Secret Daughter 18 Years of Lies

Yeah. If I insisted on treatment, my parents would probably have no choice but to borrow from loan sharks and sell their blood.

But for a family like mine, even if we sold our bones clean, we still couldn't scrape together $500,000.

I was only eighteen. I hadn't gone to college yet, hadn't dated, hadn't properly experienced this world.

I didn't want to die.

But to keep from crushing my parents, I could only choose death.

Two:

After making the decision, I actually felt lighter.

I forced myself to be optimistic, taking big bites of the steamed egg custard Dad made, hoping only to leave them good memories.

When we parted, Dad pulled a crumpled fifteen dollars from the sole of his shoe.

"Lily, this is what's left from your mom's medicine money. Take it for pocket change."

Tears welling, I waved my hand, turned, and walked out the door.

The instant I stepped outside, it hit me in a daze—this would be the last time I'd ever see my parents.

My composure shattered. Tears poured out.

Back still turned to them, I choked down my sobs and asked, "Dad, Mom, if I weren't here, would you two have it easier?"

Mom's voice was doting, with a hint of reproach.

"Silly girl, what parent would ever think their child is a burden?"

"As long as you amount to something, your dad and I—forget suffering; even if we worked ourselves to death, we'd do it willingly."

A mother's love pressed down on my heart like a weight, so heavy I couldn't breathe.

Maybe… I should have died a long time ago.

Or maybe my birth itself was the original sin.

Because she gave birth to me, Mom was left with a bad back. When it flared up, the pain was so severe she'd lose control of her bladder and bowels, her whole body paralyzed in bed.

Treating Mom's illness drained every cent the family had, and still it was never cured.

To care for her while she was bedridden, Dad quit his decent job and hauled cement at a construction site near the hospital.

For as long as I could remember, I'd known the taste of poverty.

Because food at home was so scarce, I was seriously malnourished—skinny and small, living like a mouse.

Everything I wore was hand-me-downs from relatives and friends.

Oversized clothes, ill-fitting shoes, and inferiority carved into my bones—that was my entire childhood.

By middle school, my body started developing.

The first time I got my period, I went to Mom, anxious, to ask for money for pads.

Mom was groaning in pain in bed, but she still insisted on giving me her medicine money.

Drenched in sweat, panting, she said, "Even if Mom hurts to death, I won't let my child suffer any grievance."

I cried guilty tears, covered my blood-stained pants, and ran back to school.

From twelve until now, during my period I used tissues stuffed with scraps of cloth.

Those few days every month, I endured the wet, sticky blood clinging to my pants, endured my deskmate covering their nose in disgust, endured the boys' jeering laughter…

In high school, the school stopped providing meals.

The food money my family gave wasn't even enough for bread.

But I never asked them for money again.

Because I knew every dollar I spent was hauled in by Dad carrying cement, saved by Mom from between her teeth.

Already owing so much, I wasn't qualified to talk about dignity.

I survived by picking up plastic bottles on the field and eating leftovers others abandoned in the cafeteria.

In winter, to save twenty cents on hot water, I drank from the tap.

Day after day I pushed through, and finally made it to the eve of the college entrance exam.

My mock exam score of over seven hundred was enough for a full scholarship to a top medical university.

By then, I could make Dad straighten the back that rebar and concrete had bent, and let Mom finally see a doctor at a real hospital.