Until today, I always thought my family was different from others.

Whenever I saw posts online about families favoring sons over daughters or about siblings taking advantage of each other, I couldn't help but comment.

I wanted to say, not every family has biased parents, not every sister has it that bad.

At least, I considered myself lucky.

Yet, it seemed the heavens thought this luck wasn't enough for me.

They decided to let me win a lottery worth a hundred million dollars!

I stared at the lottery ticket, wiping my eyes repeatedly, carefully checking the winning numbers.

No mistake, I had won the jackpot.

This ticket was something I bought on a whim a week ago at a roadside stand, using numbers that included the birthdays of our family of four.

Who would've thought it would actually win!

A hundred million dollars, after taxes, leaves me with eighty million in hand.

At that moment, I felt like I was floating, my mind completely blank.

I quickly took leave from work and drove home.

I couldn't wait to share this fantastic news with my mom, dad, and Benjamin.

Recently, our old house in the town was scheduled for demolition.

My parents had discussed splitting the compensation money equally between my brother and me.

But now, with such a huge amount of money, we could easily afford a decent villa!

My parents worked hard all their lives, still worrying about us even in their old age. Now, they could finally enjoy a comfortable retirement.

The more I thought about it, the more excited I became. But then, disaster struck.

Bang! The car crashed into the greenbelt.

Thankfully, the airbags deployed, and I wasn't badly hurt.

At the hospital, the doctor ran a series of tests.

The cut on my brow was just a superficial wound, needing only a couple of stitches.

But a mild to moderate concussion might cause symptoms like intermittent amnesia.

The doctor explained this to my parents.

I lay on the hospital bed, fingers touching the bandage on my head.

At that moment, I was still wrapped up in the joy of winning the lottery.

Feeling the lottery ticket in my pocket, I decided to play a little joke on my parents—

“Sir, ma'am... who are you?”

I blinked, mimicking an exaggerated performance from a TV drama.

My mom burst into tears, clutching my shoulders, sobbing.

“Xena! I'm your mom, Xena, don't you recognize your mom?”

My dad stayed relatively calm, holding my mom's shoulder, trying to comfort her. “It's okay, it's okay, the doctor said amnesia is a normal trauma reaction.”

Turning to me, he added, “Xena, I'm your dad. How's your head feeling? Is it painful or just confused? Wait a moment, we'll get the doctor to check on you.”

Saying that, he led my mom out of the ward.

Realizing the joke had gone too far, I quickly followed them.

“No! Dad, I was just—”

But as I reached the door, I noticed my dad wasn't taking my mom to find the doctor but instead slipped into the nearby fire escape.

Curious, I tiptoed after them.

“Since Xena doesn't remember anything, let's not mention the demolition money to her at all.”

My dad said.

My mom replied, “You mean, not tell her how much we're getting for the demolition?”

My dad continued, “We originally agreed to use the 1.2 million to buy Benjamin a fully paid apartment in the state capital. If you hadn't let it slip the other day, we wouldn't have planned to let Xena know either.”

My mom lightly tapped her forehead. “I just blurted it out. But now that Xena knows, we can't blatantly show favoritism.”

My dad said, “Well, fate seems to be helping us, right? Now that Xena has amnesia, she doesn't remember a thing. When the demolition money arrives next month, we'll just keep quiet.”

My mom said, “I better call Benjamin right away. Make sure he keeps his mouth shut too.”

Hiding by the wall, I couldn't help but clench my fists.