"You've got two months left."
...
Walking out of the hospital, Hannah Collins stood stiffly in the garden, gripping the report in one trembling hand, her face white as a sheet. She let out a hollow laugh, mocking herself without any real humor.
Just yesterday, she'd walked home from her shift at the milk tea shop, all cheerful, even picking up a small cake to celebrate her birthday.
But the moment that first bite went down, she collapsed—gut-wrenching pain like a blade tearing through her insides—right there in the tiny rental that cost her only 150 yuan a month.
She knew that pain. It had been quietly tormenting her for two months. At first, she was a little worried, but since it didn’t seem serious and she was trying to save every penny, she held off from seeing a doctor—until yesterday. That episode dragged her straight to the ER, and with it, an expense she couldn’t afford.
And now, on her 20th birthday, she'd been hit with the worst kind of news—terminal illness. Game over.
Always one to act tough, Hannah didn’t even know how to process it. Numb, she rode the bus back to her rundown apartment. It wasn't until she stepped inside the shabby room that it all finally hit her.
She dropped the report on the table and started tidying up in silence, like muscle memory taking over.
Knock knock knock!
“Hannah? You home, sweetie?”
“Yeah, coming, Mrs. Walker!”
Rubbing her aching eyes, Hannah shuffled over and pulled open the old wooden door. Mrs. Walker, her landlady, stood smiling, arms crossed, with another auntie in tow.
“Hey honey, I'm just here for the rent.”
“Oh! Sure, just a sec,” she said, fumbling for her phone and quickly transferring the money. 150 yuan. The number burned her eyes.
Mrs. Walker’s smile widened as she got the notification.
“Perfect, got it! You know, if you ever need anything, just holler, alright?”
“Mm-hmm! Thanks, Mrs. Walker. I'm doing okay. Really.”
Mrs. Walker exchanged a few more pleasantries and then shut the door with a bang.
The woman who’d come with her latched onto her arm right after. “Hey, what's her deal? A young girl like that, living in a place like this? Wasn’t this just an old storage shed you threw together?”
“Shhh! I know, I know,” Mrs. Walker whispered back quickly, already glancing at the door like it might have ears. “She begged me to let her stay, wouldn’t stop asking. I mean, 150 barely covers the water and electricity!”
Lowering her voice even more, she leaned in and whispered, “And listen, don’t go telling people, okay? But word is, that girl’s actually the eldest daughter the Collins family kicked out.”
“Wait—what?! The Collins family? Like, *that* Collins family?”
Horrified, Mrs. Walker clapped a hand over her friend’s mouth. She knew this one couldn’t keep her voice down for anything."Keep your voice down! Remember how the Collins family lost their daughter back then? Word was, Mrs. Collins went half-crazy missing her and blamed the older one for not looking after her sister properly. Said she did it on purpose! So they kicked her out."
As she spoke, Mrs. Walker glanced subtly at the wooden door, quietly signalling her friend that the girl in question was Hannah Collins.
Everyone knew what happened after that.
Back when the top-tier Collins family in Jingcheng lost their youngest daughter and threw out the so-called “vicious” eldest one, it made headlines. Practically everyone had heard about it.
Mrs. Walker’s friend frowned deeply.
"She doesn't seem like that kind of kid though. She looks sweet."
"Who knows? Us regular folks can't get into the head of rich people. Maybe she’s not even their real daughter—just some outsider they raised."
They leaned in to gossip quietly, but completely ignored the fact that the door wasn’t soundproof at all. Their voices carried perfectly through the thin walls.
Hannah heard every single word.
She clutched the hospital report tightly in her hand as old memories started to blur her mind.
She had only been, what, a young teen? Her sister had begged her to sneak out and have some fun, and Hannah hadn't been able to say no. So, against her better judgment, she took her out.
That was the last time she saw her.
She searched everywhere, ran through the entire neighborhood till blisters burst beneath her feet—still, nothing. No trace of her sister.
She’d been terrified.
Terrified something had happened to her sister. Terrified that the Collins family, who already disliked her, would finally decide they’d had enough.
And of course, the truth didn’t stay buried for long. As soon as they found out Stella had vanished, the house exploded in rage.
“Where’s Hannah?! Get her in my office. Now!”
That night, she sat in her tiny attic room completely frozen, bloody water soaking the floor from the burst blisters on her feet—but the physical pain didn’t even come close to how cold she felt inside.
Biting her fingernail until her fingers trembled, she forced herself to step into Terry Collins’s study—heart thudding endlessly.
Inside sat the four men of the Collins family.
As the door to the study clicked shut, she felt her chest cave in. The air went still.
Their fury hit all at once—a storm of yelling and blame poured over her. She couldn’t breathe, let alone fight back or explain. Ten minutes in, and she already felt like she was suffocating.
Her grip on the report tightened until her knuckles turned white. Her heart throbbed like someone had stabbed it, dragging fresh pain through her insides.
She remembered everything—every word, every look Terry Collins gave her. The disgust in his eyes, the cold sneer on his face.
Her own father.
That night, she couldn't even feel the pain in her feet anymore; the cold in her bones overridden everything else.
By the next morning, the blisters had gotten infected; her arms had bruises and scrapes too—but none of that changed anything.
They threw her out anyway. No second thoughts.After getting kicked out of the Collins family, Hannah ended up in a welfare shelter. No one offered her comfort—just sneers and mockery. The bullying didn’t stop, not even now…
All because she was the disowned daughter of the Collinses.
She couldn’t help thinking—if only she hadn’t refused to go out with her sister that day, maybe everything would’ve been different. Maybe she’d be just a regular girl, going to school, working a stable job, getting married and living a simple, happy life…
The more she thought about it, the more her head throbbed in pain.
She forced herself to shake off that downward spiral, took a few deep breaths, trying to ease the ache.
After a while, tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
She quickly covered her face with her hands and bit her lip hard, shaky sobs stuck in her throat.
Even when her nose started to make sniffly sounds, she swallowed them back—refusing to cry out loud.
She had no good reason to cry.
Would bawling bring a do-over? Change anything? Would it mean she had more time?
Of course not—if anything, it would just make her feel worse, make it clearer how pitiful she really was.
Hannah sat limply on the worn-out wooden chair, letting the tears and snot run freely down her face.
After sitting there for a while, she messily wiped her face dry, pulled out a half-torn piece of paper and a dying pen from her faded canvas bag.
She stared at them for a bit, then tossed both aside.
Instead, she reached back into her bag and took out her untouched stash of blank paper and a better pen.
Under the soft glow of the lamp, she started writing carefully, taking her time.
A month later, her paycheck from the bubble tea shop came in. Right after that, she quit her job and gave up the apartment.
With her beat-up backpack and the little money she’d saved up, she finally set out to do what she’d always dreamed of.
She traveled the country, not holding back, not caring about anything else.
In her final month, she just wanted to live for herself—for real.
Two years later, in a quiet mountain village surrounded by lush greenery and clear waters, a farmer stumbled upon a skeleton while gathering firewood. Terrified, he immediately called the police.
The discovery drew attention from the local government, and soon, reporters rushed in to cover the story.
With the police’s permission, they got a look at the crime scene photos.
In the pictures, the deceased had her hands folded over her chest, lying on the forest floor like she was at peace.
Inside her clothes, they found three pieces of paper: a cancer diagnosis from two years ago, a page packed with travel plans…
And the one that made even the reporters’ eyes sting with emotion—a half-torn sheet, neatly written in elegant handwriting:
“Please… let there be no next life.”
