Chapter 1: Died from Constipation

Inside the dilapidated old house of the Zhao family village…

A seventy-year-old woman, Zhang Xiulian, lay hunched on an old wooden bed.

Her complexion was ashen, her eyes deeply sunken, and a pained expression stretched across her shriveled face.

Her thin, dry hands clutched tightly at her swollen abdomen.

She stared weakly at her second son, Zhao Wen, standing at her bedside, and said in a breath barely audible:

“Erwen, Mom hasn’t had a bowel movement in a whole week. My stomach feels like it’s about to burst. Please, take me to the hospital…”

Zhao Wen had actually come over to check if his mother was still breathing.

Startled by her sudden voice, his legs instinctively stepped back.

“Damn, scared me to death! Mom, you’re still not dead?!”

He snorted and continued mockingly:

“Oh please, Mom, have you lost your mind?

Your retirement money went to your youngest son Zhao Guang.

The money you saved when you were young paid for Zhao Ming, the third one, to go to college.

I, Zhao Wen, am the eldest, yet I have no money, no diploma.

Why should I be the one to take you?

Zhao Ming, Zhao Guang, don’t you think I’m right?”

Zhao Wen’s wife, Wu Cui, rolled her eyes and passed the buck.

Zhao Ming, the third son, quickly responded, not wanting to be stuck with the responsibility:

“Sister-in-law, Mom raised two of your kids for you. She’s never even watched mine for a single day. Why should I be the one to take her?”

Zhao Guang, the fourth son, added coldly:

“I’m definitely not taking her! If Mom had disciplined me better when I was younger, would I have ended up in jail over and over?

That measly 20 cents she gave me was barely compensation.

I just got out. I don’t even have a cent—my pockets are cleaner than my face.”

Zhao Guang didn’t even look up from his phone as he spoke.

All these heartless words pierced Zhang Xiulian’s ears like sharp arrows, leaving her heart riddled with wounds.

This was the reward she got for a lifetime of backbreaking labor, slaving away like an ox for the family, raising her sons through hardship.

When they needed her, they spoke with honeyed words:

“Mom, don’t worry, I’ll take care of you in your old age!”

Now that she actually needed them, they were all just passing the buck.

If she had known this day would come, she should’ve drowned them in the piss bucket the moment they were born!
Thrown them into the river!
Stuffed them in the stove!

Her fingernails dug into her palms as her body trembled uncontrollably, her throat tightening—

“Pfft!”

A mouthful of blood and pus spewed out, instantly staining her blanket and hollow face red.

“Mom! Mom! What happened?!”

Her youngest daughter, Zhao Pingping, had just come through the door and was horrified by the bloody scene.

She dropped her bag and rushed to the bed in two steps, collapsing beside her mother and crying out in anguish.

“Brothers, why are you just standing there?! Mom’s coughing up blood! Take her to the hospital—now!”

She shook her mother a few times, but when there was no response, she looked at her three brothers in desperation.

Zhao Ming feigned concern and said:

“Pingping, it’s not that we don’t care. We just… really don’t have any money.”

Zhao Pingping’s eyes immediately locked onto her second brother:

“Zhao Wen! Didn’t I send you 20,000 yuan a few days ago for Mom’s treatment? Where’s the money?!”

Zhao Wen’s face changed instantly. He stuttered and hemmed and hawed, but still couldn’t say where the money had gone.

Zhao Ming and Zhao Guang glared fiercely at Zhao Wen when they heard he had pocketed the 20,000 yuan.

Their expressions were like starving wolves who had missed their share of meat—ready to tear someone apart.

Seeing her three brothers completely indifferent, Zhao Pingping suddenly understood:

They were just going to watch their mother die.

Poor Mom. Ever since marrying into this family, she had endured beatings from Dad and scoldings from Grandma.

She raised all the siblings with painstaking effort, even helped raise Zhao Wen’s two sons.

She never enjoyed a single day of peace. Now in her seventies, she was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Her three sons refused to spend a single cent, and now even stole the 20,000 yuan she had finally managed to save 20,000 yuan.

Zhao Pingping couldn’t hold back her sorrow. She pounded her fists on the wooden bed and wailed loudly, “Mom, it’s all my fault I’m so useless! Mom, please open your eyes and look at me one more time!”

Zhang Xiulian heard her youngest daughter’s cries in her ears and desperately wanted to open her eyes and see her daughter again.

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t lift her eyelids. She used all her strength to raise an arm, groping around in the darkness for her daughter as she muttered, “Pingping… Mom is sorry…”

Before she could finish the word sorry, her arm suddenly dropped lifelessly.

“Mom!”

Zhao Pingping lifted her mother’s still-warm hand and placed it against her face, crying her heart out.

Seventy-four-year-old Zhang Xiulian died a slow and painful death from a bowel obstruction caused by colon cancer.

As the saying goes, “No one dies from holding in their urine”—but Zhang Xiulian was literally killed by her own feces.

Wu Cui, seeing that Zhang Xiulian had truly passed, quickly covered her nose and mouth with one hand and pulled her husband Zhao Wen with the other. “What bad luck. Let’s get out of here.”

Zhao Ming and Zhao Guang exchanged a glance and silently followed them out.

Zhao Pingping didn’t even have time to wipe her tears. She rushed to the door and blocked it with her arms. “Brothers, you can’t leave. What about Mom? If you go, who will take care of her?”

After just a one-minute discussion, Zhao Wen, Zhao Ming, and Zhao Guang made their final decision:
“Little sister, you take Mom to be cremated. Just scatter the ashes somewhere—anywhere is fine. A filthy ditch, a sewer, or even a public toilet—as long as it doesn’t cost money, it’s fine.”

“Mom was frugal her whole life. She definitely wouldn’t want to spend money on an urn or a burial plot. This way is just right for her!”

After saying this, Wu Cui pried Zhao Pingping’s hands off the door, and the group quickly left.

As Zhang Xiulian took her final breath, her body felt light.

All the pain and illness vanished, and it felt like she had returned to a time when she was healthy again.

But she was no longer a living person—she had become a faint, floating shadow.

Watching her three sons leave without a second thought, Zhang Xiulian’s heart shattered into pieces.

She had slaved away her whole life for her children and grandchildren, yet in life they ignored her, and in death they didn’t even care for her final arrangements.

How pitiful. How lamentable.

Then she thought of her youngest daughter Pingping, who she had neglected since childhood.

All the good food and drinks were given to the sons, leaving Pingping weak and sickly, even infertile. And yet, she was the most filial of them all.

Zhang Xiulian raised her hand.

Slap! Slap!

She gave herself two hard slaps.

“Zhang Xiulian, you’re such a fool!”

Looking at her daughter sobbing in front of her, Zhang Xiulian’s heart ached. She reached out, wanting to wipe away her daughter’s tears.

She kept trying, but couldn’t touch her.

At that moment, a man in a suit suddenly walked into the courtyard.

“Little sister, I’m sorry I’m late. I’ll take care of everything for Auntie’s funeral. The cemetery plot is already arranged.”
The man held Zhao Pingping’s hand and signaled the funeral team behind him to enter the house.

He had hired a professional funeral team to handle everything.

Looking at herself lying in the coffin, beautifully dressed and with delicate makeup, Zhang Xiulian was moved to tears.

If only she hadn’t been so biased toward sons back then… If only she had approved her eldest daughter Zhao Lili’s marriage, maybe Lili wouldn’t have taken her own life.

“It was all my fault. I ruined both of my daughters.”

“If I had the chance to live again, I would never make the same mistakes!”

Zhang Xiulian’s eyes turned red, and her fists clenched tightly, leaving deep marks in her palms.

As her body became increasingly transparent, she took one last look at her daughter and slowly closed her eyes.

Disappearing might not be so bad.

If she disappeared, she wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.

This ridiculous life of hers could finally end.

The debt she owed her two daughters… she could only hope to repay it in the next life.