Once I finished washing the dishes, I hurried to my room. That's when it hit me-- this had happened before. In my last life, my mom had tried to get me to drop out of school and marry that greasy, middle-aged guy who'd been creeping on me earlier. He was a deadbeat who spent all his time gambling and drinking. His wife had left him for someone else. But then his family got a big payout from a property deal, and he got even lazier. No respectable family wanted their daughter to marry him, but my mom didn't care. She was willing to trade me for the ten thousand dollars he promised.
Recently, my mom had gotten ahold of a bunch of opium-based tonics, and they were piled up in the corner of the living room. The whole house reeked of this sour, rotten smell, and it made me want to gag. My brother had ballooned up even more, and now he could barely move without wheezing. My dad had started coughing constantly too, but my mom kept insisting they just needed more nourishment. She cooked up endless pots of chicken and fish soup, but every batch was tinged yellow and had that awful sour smell from the tonics.