The Stolen Goose, My Family Is Toxic

My parents accidentally stewed the research subject I had been cultivating for three years. They stood before me, overflowing with self-reproach.

But Mom, Dad, I have been reborn. I know you did it on purpose.

To get a fifty-thousand-dollar bride price to fund my brother's pursuit of a wealthy socialite, you deliberately ruined my studies. You manipulated me into marrying a violent, older man.

The day I was beaten to death by that monster, my soul drifted in the air. I watched my parents wailing over my body. My brother was acting out in a fit of rage over my death.

But in the blink of an eye, once the police arrived and the commotion peaked, their faces shifted.

"Sia was our most beloved daughter. This matter cannot be settled for less than three hundred thousand dollars!"

"If it weren't for the fact that she was married to you, and we don't want to air our dirty laundry, we would have sent you to prison no matter how much money you offered!"

They haggled in front of my corpse, their faces flushed with greed.

Eventually, they settled the matter for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Everyone was happy.

Except for me. I became the ungrateful daughter who had "depressive tendencies" and "committed suicide" despite her family's love.

Even after death, people pointed at my memory, calling me fragile and selfish for hurting my parents and husband.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my research project was destroyed.

"Sia, sweetheart, Mom really didn't mean it. If I had known this goose was so important, I never would have killed it to make you soup."

Waking from my faint, I looked at the middle-aged woman crying messy tears. Her eyes were full of fake guilt.

My parents had come to visit me at the university. While I was out buying drinks, they slaughtered the research goose my advisor and I had spent three years breeding.

In my past life, I had screamed and cried. I told them this project was my entire Master's thesis. I told them it was three years of blood and sweat.

I eventually fainted from the stress.

Now that I was awake, my mother's tears kept falling. She kept rambling about her ignorance and regret.

My father sighed heavily beside her.

"Sia, your mother just wanted you to have a taste of home. You haven't eaten her cooking in so long, so she thought of killing the goose to nourish your body."

My brother, Zane, frowned deeply.

"Sis, stop being so sad. Look on the bright sideDMom and Dad did it because they love you. It was just a mistake born from a good heart. Is it really worth making such a scene?"

Is it worth it?

How could it not be?

I was reborn.

I already knew they killed my goose on purpose. They wanted to ruin my academic career so I would submissively go home and marry for money.

If I hadn't been reborn, I would have been moved by their tears. I would have forgiven them.

I would have even comforted them, telling them not to feel guilty.

It was that very act of forgiveness that sent me into the abyss in my previous life.

This time, I won't be so stupid.

"Mom, Dad, if you wanted to cook for me, why didn't you go to the grocery store? Why did you take a bird from the campus lab?"

I fixed my sharp gaze on them.

If they had truly planned to cook for me, why hadn't they brought any other ingredients?

They both froze.

They clearly didn't expect me to hold my ground after such a dramatic apology.

Zane's brow furrowed further.

"Sia, what is wrong with you? I said they were just confused. They feel terrible. Can't you show some compassion?"

"Mom cooked this specifically for you. She didn't even let us have a bite. Are you really going to waste her love like this?"

My father tapped the table impatiently. "Enough already. It's just a bird. Stop being so dramatic. If it's that big of a deal, I'll buy you another one from the market!"

I turned my cold eyes toward my dear brother.

"Zane, I haven't even started on you. Mom and Dad might be ignorant of lab rules, but you aren't. You brought them here. Where were you when they were slaughtering the subject?"

Zane's eyes flickered with guilt, but his voice got louder and more defensive.

"Sia Vance, are you blaming me? I just stepped away for a second! We're family. Why are you being so petty? At the end of the day, it's just a project."

My eyes turned red as I looked at them.

"This is the result of three years of sleepless nights. It's my entire degree. Do you really think it's not important?"

My mother nodded without hesitation.

"It's just a stupid goose. How can it be more important than family? Besides, Sia, it was for you to eat. It's not like we were being greedy. Honestly, school isn't all that great anyway. Your father and I didn't graduate, and look at usDwe're doing fine."

"If you can't finish your degree, we won't blame you. But hurting your brother's feelings over a bird? That's not worth it."

"If you broke something of Zane's or ours, we wouldn't hold it against you."

My father nodded in agreement. "No matter how important a thing is, it's nothing compared to family."

They said the exact same things in my last life.

I believed them then.

But this time, I wanted to test if their words were true.

I looked at Zane calmly.

"Do you feel the same way, brother?"

My mother immediately signaled Zane with her eyes.

Zane shrugged, looking annoyed. "I'm not like you. I wouldn't act like the sky is falling over a tiny mistake."

Then, remembering something, his tone softened. "Sis, we all know we were wrong now. It was an accident. It won't happen again."

I nodded slowly, my face expressionless.

The three of them let out a collective sigh of relief. Satisfied smiles appeared on their faces.

"That's my girl. Come on, let's eat."

With that, my father placed a piece of the goose meat into my bowl.

He looked at me expectantly. My mother watched me intensely.

I lowered my eyes to hide the coldness within.

In my last life, after I forgave them, they did this too. They forced that meat into my bowl.

In my previous life, I lost control again, but they turned it against me.

My mother started sobbing. My father and Zane grew louder with their accusations.

"Sia, you're still holding a grudge, aren't you?"

"Sis, they already apologized. Can't you be a little more mature?"

"Your mother did this out of love. She cooked this specifically for you. Stop being a brat!"

"It's just a goose! Are you going to destroy the whole family's peace over a bird?"

Just a goose.

Just a goose...

Those words were like heavy stones crushing the life out of me. I felt suffocated and powerless.

By the end, I was the one feeling guilty.

To prove I didn't hate them, I choked down that meat while tears streamed down my face. At that moment, my boundaries were dismantled bit by bit.

From then on, whenever I disagreed with them, they used that same tactic to force my submission.

It wasn't until I was dying that I realized they were simply testing my limits over and over again.

This time, I put down my forks.

"We can't eat this."

The moment those four words left my mouth, they looked at me like I was a criminal.

They opened their mouths to start the lecture.

"But this was cooked just forD"

I cut them off, my face turning dead serious.

"Mom, Dad, this is a laboratory specimen. It hasn't passed any safety inspections. What if something happens to our health if we eat it?"

My mother's anxious gaze darted between my father and Zane. She looked like she wanted to say something but hesitated.

I acted as if I didn't notice. "Since this was for me, I assume you guys haven't eaten any yet, right?"

Their faces turned pale. Their mouths hung open. "No..."

"Good," I said, letting out a breath of relief. I added casually, "If you eat it and get a lab-grown virus, there might not even be a cure."

Their expressions became even more horrified.

They claimed they cooked it for me, but how could my mother not let her precious son have the first bite?

I knew their patterns all too well.

My mother would always give me the leftovers of Zane's soup and claim she made it specifically for me.

She would give me the things Zane didn't want and claim she bought them just for me.

My mother licked her dry lips. "Sia... it can't be that serious, right? A goose is just a goose."

"Maybe. But in a bio-lab, who knows what hormones or experimental drugs were used during breeding... But it doesn't matter. You didn't eat it, right?"

I glanced at their guilty faces and laughed, shaking my head.

"Relax. I'm just joking."

Just as they relaxed, I pulled out a pair of latex lab gloves. Right in front of them, I carefully dumped the entire pot of meat into a biohazard sealable bag.

Then, I washed my hands meticulously.

My parents were speechless.

Zane looked like he'd seen a ghost.

I sat back down, served myself a fresh bowl of plain rice, and smiled brightly.

"Mom, Dad, Zane, don't just sit there. Let's eat."

The three of them looked like they were chewing on ash. They were distracted and terrified.

By the end of the meal, I was the only one who had enjoyed it.

After dinner, my brother pulled out a high-speed data drive. He spoke with his usual sense of entitlement.

"Sia, my coding project has a few bugs. Finish it for me."

Zane was three years younger than me. He wasn't bright, and he certainly wasn't hardworking.

In the past, I stayed up night after night tutoring him just to get him into a decent college.

Once he chose Computer Science, he went right back to being a useless slacker.

Eighty percent of his coursework was done by me.

Including his senior capstone project.

My parents had brainwashed me into believing I had to support my brother, so I kept doing it.

Once, I ended up in the ER with exhaustion because I stayed up for forty-eight hours straight finishing his overdue assignments.

The program he wanted me to fix now was the core of his graduation project.

In my last life, he used the core program I built to attract the attention of a wealthy girl in his department.

He became famous during the final presentations and got recruited by a top tech firm.

Right now, he was already trying to impress that socialite. He wanted to officially pursue her.

To fund his lifestyle and pretend he was a rich tech genius, he had his eyes set on me. He planned to "sell" me off for a bride price.

To him, what was a faster way to get cash than selling his sister?

Nothing.

I smiled and took the drive, asking about his progress as I usually did.

Zane gave his usual vague, dismissive answers.

I opened my laptop, inserted the drive, and began typing line after line of code. I explained why I was making certain changes.

Usually, Zane was too impatient to listen to my explanations. But this time, he forced himself to watch.

After all, if the rich girl asked him questions he couldn't answer, his cover would be blown.

As I typed the final line of code, my fingers hovered over a specific key combination. Then, I hit Enter.

The program began to run, syncing with other remote-controlled processes.

Zane had been worried I might sabotage him because of the goose incident. Seeing the program running smoothly, he finally relaxed.

However, just as it reached peak performance, the interface suddenly started to lag and stutter.

%%%