My Life-Stealing Mother

The girl staring into the mirror looked pale, but her eyes held a ruthless sharpness beyond her years. My name is Yvonne Sullivan. Just yesterday, I lay on a hospital bed, a twenty-eight-year-old woman ravaged by cancer, with barely a breath of life left. But today, I have returned to when I was seventeen—back to the very family that damned me to hell. Only when I was dying in my past life did I realize my mother, Linda Zimmerman, was far from ordinary. She practiced lifespan borrowing—siphoning the lifespans of her own flesh and blood to preserve her youth and seize fortune. I remember when I was eighteen, she crept into my room while I slept and cut a lock of my hair. That was the moment she drained sixty years from my remaining lifespan. Fifteen of those years she gave to her beloved son, Kevin Sullivan, curing his congenital frailty. She kept fifteen years for herself—though she was in her forties, she looked like a young woman in her early twenties. The remaining thirty years, she sold to the underworld boss Zachary Locke. Because of those thirty years of remaining lifespan, our family transformed overnight from an ordinary household into one living in a villa and driving luxury cars. As for me, my health deteriorated from then on; just past twenty, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness, and by twenty-eight, I reached the end of my life. On my deathbed, I lay there, listening to my mother and brother laughing outside the hospital room. They called me the family's "lucky star"; without me, how could they have lived such good lives? That cold, crushing despair—I will never forget it for as long as I live. Heaven has eyes. It has granted me a second life. This time, I will never be anyone's pawn to be sacrificed. I walked into the bathroom and stared at my reflection—my long, black hair. In my past life, my mother used my hair as a tool for her dark magic. But this time, I will never give her that chance. I grabbed the scissors and without hesitation, sliced through my hair. The sound of scissors slicing through hair echoed sharply in the silent bathroom. Strands of black hair fell to the floor, but my heart grew steadily calmer. Before long, the girl in the mirror had become a buzz-cut silhouette. Just then, the door was violently thrown open. Mother Linda burst in, and when she saw the hair scattered across the floor, her eyes widened like copper bells. "Yvonne! Have you lost your mind?!" she screamed, lunging to snatch the scissors from my hands. I stepped back, dodging her reach. "Mom, I just think short hair's cooler. What's wrong with that?" I deliberately pretended to be innocent. At that moment, my younger brother Kevin Sullivan rushed over. Seeing me like this, he frowned, his face full of disdain: "Yvonne, why did you cut your hair? It looks terrible!" Linda Zimmerman took a deep breath, forcing down her anger. She gently took my hand and said softly, "Yvonne, how can a girl cut her hair this short?" "Quick, go with me to the hair salon. Let's get your hair fixed, okay?" I shrugged off her hand and shook my head. "No need, Mom. I actually like it this way." Linda Zimmerman's face darkened instantly, a glint of ruthless malice flashing in her eyes. I knew she must be desperate. Without my hair, she couldn't borrow any lifespan, nor could she sell my lifespan for money anymore. But I wouldn't let her succeed.