I got pregnant when I was still in Grade 10.
My parents looked at me coldly and said,
“You have brought shame to this family. From today on, you are no longer our daughter.”
I was only in Grade 10 when I found out I was pregnant.
When I saw the two lines on the test, I was so terrified that my whole body trembled and I could barely stand. I hadn’t even figured out what to do yet when the truth suddenly came out.
My parents looked at me as if I were something disgraceful.
“This is an embarrassment to this household. From now on, you are no longer our child.”
Every word my father spoke felt like a cruel slap across my face.
That night, it was raining.
My mother threw my torn backpack outside and forced me out of the house. I didn’t have a single coin in my pocket. I had nowhere to go.
Holding my stomach, I endured the pain and walked away from what used to be the safest, warmest place in my life—without ever looking back.
I gave birth to my daughter in an eight-square-meter boarding room.
It was miserable, suffocating, full of whispers and gossip. I raised her with everything I had. When she turned two, I left our province and brought her with me to Saigon. I worked as a waitress while studying a vocational course.
Eventually, fate finally smiled at me.
I got the chance to start an online business, and later I built my own company.
After six years, I bought a house.
After ten years, I opened a chain of stores.
After twenty years… my assets exceeded 200 billion Vietnamese dong.
I knew I had succeeded.
But the pain in my chest—the wound of being abandoned by my own parents—never truly healed.
One day, I decided to return.
Not to forgive.
But to make them feel what they had lost.
I drove my new Mercedes back to my hometown. The old, broken house was still there, almost unchanged after twenty years—if not worse. The iron gate was rusted. The paint on the walls was peeling. The yard was overgrown with weeds.
I stood in front of the door, took a deep breath, and knocked three times.
A young girl, about eighteen years old, came out to open the door.
I froze.
She… looked exactly like me. Her eyes, her nose, even the way she frowned. It was like looking at myself when I was young.
“Who are you looking for?” the girl asked politely.
Before I could answer, my parents stepped out of the house. When they saw me, both of them stopped. My mother covered her mouth, her eyes instantly red.
I gave a cold smile.
“So… now you regret it?”
The girl suddenly ran to my mother and held her hand.
“Grandma, who is she?”
Grandma?
My whole body went numb. My chest felt like it shattered. I turned to my parents.
“Who… who is this girl?”
My mother burst into tears.
“She… she is your daughter.”
I died inside.
I almost screamed,
“That’s impossible! My daughter has been with me since she was little! What are you talking about?!”
My father sighed deeply. His voice trembled, clearly worn down by time.
“We… adopted a baby who was left at our gate… eighteen years ago.”
My blood turned cold.
“Abandoned? At the gate?”
My mother took an old diaper from the cabinet. I recognized it instantly. It was the diaper I had wrapped around my baby when she was born.
It felt like my heart was being stabbed.
Through her tears, my mother said,
“After you left… a few months later, her father came. He wanted to take the child back, but you had already taken her to Saigon. He was furious, started drinking, caused trouble everywhere… then disappeared for a long time.
Eighteen years ago… one morning, I opened the door and found a newborn baby placed in front of our gate. She had nothing with her except this diaper. I knew… I knew it had something to do with you. I thought… maybe something terrible had happened to you… maybe you were gone.”
Her voice broke completely.
“We were wrong about you back then. But this child… we couldn’t leave her in an orphanage. We raised her as our own. We never hurt her, never scolded her—not even once.”
I was shaking.
I remembered clearly: I had hidden that diaper carefully in a wooden box. No one knew about it. If someone left this baby at my parents’ gate… there was only one possibility.
The real father of my daughter.
He had another child with another woman. Then he abandoned her at the very place where he knew I had been thrown out years ago.
I looked at the girl—the child I did not give birth to, yet who looked so shockingly like me.
Shyly, she asked,
“Big sister… why are you crying?”
I pulled her into my arms and cried harder than I ever had in my life.
My parents fell to their knees.
“Please forgive us. We were wrong. Don’t be angry with the child… she did nothing wrong.”
I looked at them, and suddenly, the twenty years of resentment in my heart disappeared. Not because they deserved forgiveness—but because I finally understood something.
This girl needed a family.
And I… needed to close the door on the past.
I stood up, wiped my tears, and said,
“I didn’t come back for revenge. I came back… to reclaim what belongs to me.”
I held the girl’s hand and smiled.
“From today on, I am your older sister.”
Behind us, my parents cried like children.