Chapter 1

My daughter, Lana Parker, hated me to the core.

I raised her to be a model, but she said she didn't want to be something people stared at like a display piece.

She started dating an older man, and I did everything I could to stop her. She said I couldn't stand seeing her find "true love."

She won first place in a modeling competition and stepped onto the international stage, but during an interview, she accused me of abusing her.

Later, she killed me, scattered my ashes into a filthy gutter, and sneered that I had it coming.

After I returned to the past, I canceled all her training classes, fired her coach, and gave her the freedom to date whoever she wanted.

I watched her go from being bright and admired to a life of self-indulgence, and honestly, I didn't care.

In the end, she finally regretted it.

*****

Her coach said over the phone, "Hi, Emma. The tuition for next month is due. It's a total of 6,000 dollars,

"But there's something I need to mention.

"Lately, Lana hasn't been paying much attention in class. She keeps going to the restroom or saying she's too tired to train. By the end of each session, she's barely getting any real practice done.

"I've heard from the other students that she is dating someone recently, so she's not really focused anymore.

"The high school modeling competition is only five months away, and the other contestants are all working very hard. Lana has a lot of talent, but if she keeps this up, she probably won't be able to outperform them.

"You really should sit down and have a heart-to-heart with her and get her focused again. It would be a real waste if she let this opportunity slip away."

I had just come back to life when I received a call from Lana's coach.

It was the same call I had received in my previous life.

Lana had always been beautiful, with a natural grace about her. Becoming a model had been her dream for as long as I could remember.

I supported that dream and enrolled her in modeling classes.

She was gifted and learned quickly, always earning praise from her coach. I had always been proud of her.

She had just started her senior year, and in five months, she would be representing her school at the national high school modeling competition. Winners were guaranteed admission to top universities, and the top three would even have the opportunity to study abroad.

To secure a better future for her, I hired the best coach and devoted everything to preparing her for the competition.

For the first two months, she stayed focused. But I never expected that by the third month, she had already started to be distracted.

In my previous life, when I found out, I was overwhelmed with anxiety. That night, I called her into my room and questioned her about how she had been doing lately and who she had been seeing.

Lana didn't hold back. She told me directly that her boyfriend was a CEO.

He was forty-six years old, ran a publicly listed company, drove a Rolls-Royce, owned two luxury apartments in the city center, and had tens of millions in the bank.

When Lana talked about him, it was not a confession at all. It was bragging, plain and simple.

She even said he planned to make her his sugar baby, give her three thousand dollars a month for living expenses, and turn her into an internet celebrity that everyone would admire.

But I could tell she was not talking about a regular influencer, but a kind of risqué content creator who showed off her body and danced in revealing outfits for attention.

I was so furious I could barely hold myself back.

All these years, I supported her dream of becoming a model because I wanted her to fulfill her childhood wish and walk the international runways, not become some money-driven suggestive content creator.

Besides, our family was well off. She did not need to rely on a sugar daddy for financial support.

I tried to talk her into breaking up with him, laying everything out and explaining my reasons, but she exploded at me.

She even got her father and grandmother to turn against me, calling me controlling and heartless, and said she no longer wanted to call me her mother.

In the end, I begged her and swallowed my pride, agreeing to give her seven thousand dollars a month for living expenses. Only then did she reluctantly agree to cut ties with that man.

After five months of intense training, Lana excelled. She won the gold medal at the modeling competition, secured admission to a top university, and even earned a place on an international runway.

I was bursting with pride. It only confirmed that I had made the right choice.

I prepared a lavish meal filled with all her favorite dishes to celebrate the endless possibilities ahead of her.

But to my shock, during the post-competition interview, she publicly accused me of mistreating her.

She claimed I had pushed her into modeling just so she could be something people stared at like a display piece, profiting off her appearance as if she were some kind of commodity.

She said I had forced her to break up because I was bitter and emotionally damaged by my failed marriage, unable to accept that she had found real love, and that I had done everything I could to tear them apart.

All the years of devotion and care I had given her were twisted, recast into something ugly in the eyes of everyone.

At last, with tears streaming down her face, she looked straight into the camera and asked, "Mom, I fulfilled your wishes. Are you satisfied now? I'm an adult now. Can you please stop using your love to control me?"

Her words sent shockwaves across the internet.

Countless people resonated with her pain and quickly rallied to her side, becoming her supporters.

They projected their own resentment and anger toward their parents onto me, flooding me with relentless messages and emails.

I was subjected to cyberbullying, lost my job, and became the subject of my neighbors' whispers and accusations. In the end, I was diagnosed with depression.

Every day, I suffered from severe headaches. I had to rely on medication to get through the day. Meanwhile, she spent her days and nights out partying, burning through my money without a second thought.

It didn't take long for her to drain my savings completely.