Chapter 5

The crowd around us immediately gathered in, pointing fingers at me.

“How can she be like that? Look how pitiful her mom is.”

“She looks pretty strong, so why is her heart so cruel?”

“Today’s young people really have no conscience.”

I covered my burning cheek and stared coldly at this ugly family of three in front of me.

The cursing from around us rose and fell in waves, and I couldn’t go head-on against them.

I grabbed my mom’s arm. “Don’t smash into anything. I’m out of money.”

I pulled an empty card out of my woven sack.

“There’s still three hundred thousand in this card.”

“This is the last ‘life-saving money’ I prepared for you.”

“I asked around. There’s a coworker at the construction site whose wife also has leukemia. He said the bone marrow transplant and follow-up treatment cost at least one million.”

“I don’t have that much, so I really can’t do anything.”

I spoke sincerely, with just the right amount of guilt and helplessness in my eyes.

My mom immediately stopped throwing a fit and instead grabbed my hand.

“Alice, I know you’ve done your best. I don’t blame you.”

She wiped the corner of her eye, where there weren’t any tears at all, and her voice turned incredibly gentle.

“If the money isn’t enough, we’ll think of something else. You’re my only hope.”

“As long as you listen obediently and give me your bone marrow, I’ll be saved.”

Harris also chimed in beside her.

“Yeah, Alice, we’ll figure out the money. You just need to take care of your body first. The match is what matters most.”

I nodded, pretending I had been persuaded.

“Okay, then let’s go get the old physical exam reports first and let the doctor take another look. I want to see whether my condition is actually suitable for donation.”

What I said made perfect sense, and they didn’t doubt me.

When I finally got that thick stack of physical exam reports, my heart settled.

Every single report showed that all my numbers were shockingly good.

Healthy, strong, the perfect bone marrow donor.

They really went to a lot of trouble for this. To get to this day, they must have spent a huge amount of effort!