The Inheritance of Sin

Every time I kill someone. I inherit all the knowledge in their brain. On the eve of the SATs, I murdered my best friend. Because her grades had always been perfect. After the exams, I replaced her. And successfully got into an Ivy League university. 1. I possess a secret superpower. That is, whenever I kill someone, I inherit all the knowledge they possessed. I first realized I had this power during the summer I turned ten. My mom was too busy with work to take care of me, so she sent me to stay with my grandmother in a rural town in Alabama. Honestly, the thing I hated most as a kid was being sent to Grandma's. The countryside was poor and run-down, not fun at all. And every night just past eight, Grandma would get ready for bed. Because of this, Grandma and I often got into arguments. Several times, Grandma's wrinkled old face would turn a bruised purple from anger at me. Making her look like she was about to pass out. My mom used to teach me not to make Grandma angry. Because Grandma had a bad heart. She always carried a small pill bottle for emergencies. I knew this, of course. So later, on a very ordinary night. When I got into another argument with Grandma. With a heart full of malice, I viciously cursed at her: "You old witch, why don't you just die already!" Hearing this, Grandma's eyes widened in shock, looking at me like she had encountered a monster. "You... you..." She was shaking all over from my words, stammering for a long time, unable to speak a complete sentence. Then I saw Grandma's eyes snap open. Her body arched in pain. She raised her withered right hand to clutch her heart, and collapsed on the floor. "Pills, my pills..." Grandma struggled to raise her hand, reaching for her pocket. I was one step ahead. I took the small pill bottle from her pocket. I clutched the bottle, quickly stepping back a few paces, looking at Grandma on the floor expressionlessly. To this day, I remember the expression on Grandma's face at that moment. Her lips turned purple, her face upturned. In those sunken eye sockets, there was first a trace of surprise. A few seconds later, that surprise turned into horror mixed with disbelief. Grandma seemed to realize what I wanted to do. The instinct to survive drove her to try and crawl up from the floor. But the more Grandma struggled, the harder she gasped. After what seemed like an extremely long time to me. Grandma's movements froze in an instant. She lay on the floor, her arm stretched straight in my direction. Like a frozen ice sculpture. Her body gradually turned cold, motionless. The dim room returned to a deathly silence. I moved my stiff legs, walked to the landline, and dialed 911. In the interval waiting for the ambulance. I walked over to a cabinet filled with various medicine bottles. Opened my palm, slick with cold sweat. Placed the small pill bottle in my hand on the cabinet. Then, I swung my arm violently. Those small bottles rolled onto the floor with a clatter. When the piercing siren sounded from outside the house. I slumped to the ground. Pretending to be panicked, I opened my mouth and started wailing loudly. 2. The paramedics confirmed Grandma's death on the spot. After my mom rushed to the hospital, she kept comforting the sobbing me. She didn't blame me for not being able to find the emergency medicine on the cabinet in time when Grandma fell ill. Everyone thought it was just a tragic accident. I noticed things started to get weird after Grandma's funeral. I suddenly found myself mastering some skills I had never touched before. Like cooking, sewing, and even some knowledge about farming. But I didn't have any related memories. Those skills seemed to appear in my brain out of thin air. Until one day later, I tasted a bite of the shredded potatoes I stir-fried myself. It tasted exactly like what my grandma made. Only then did I suddenly understand. The extra knowledge in my brain all came from my grandma. And in that instant. An incredibly crazy, absurd guess surfaced. For a long time. I buried this guess deep in my heart. Never told anyone. However, this guess was like a seed. Sprouting quietly without a sound. ... In middle school, my grades weren't good. It was a struggle to even get into an ordinary high school. At that time, a girl in my class with excellent grades lived in the same neighborhood as me. We often rode bikes to and from school together. Honestly, I envied her. With her grades, getting into the key high school in our city would be a breeze. One day before the high school entrance exam, I sneaked into the bike shed during recess and, as if possessed, messed up that girl's brakes. It's hard to describe exactly why I did it. I felt like I didn't really want to kill her. I just wanted to use this opportunity. To verify the guess that had been lingering in my heart for a long time. On the way home, I don't know if it was my luck being too good, or hers being too bad. When we passed an intersection, we happened to encounter a semi-truck running a red light. That girl couldn't brake and was hit directly in front of me, dying on the spot. The driver of that truck was fatigued. At the time of the accident, he hadn't slept for almost two days. In short, this was a complete tragedy. It had nothing to do with me. Later, sitting in the exam hall. The questions that used to be as incomprehensible as a heavenly book suddenly became incredibly simple. After the results came out. I ranked tenth in the grade and successfully got into that key high school I had been longing for. Everyone thought I had performed extraordinarily well and envied my good luck. I just smiled and never refuted. They were right. I was indeed quite lucky. 3. Half a month before the SATs, most of the students in the class were preparing with all their might. Only I was different. I sat in class every day, eyes staring at the textbook, but the question I pondered most in my mind was how to kill Chloe without leaving a trace. In the eyes of others, I was Chloe's best friend. For three years of high school, we were almost inseparable on campus, even calling each other to go to the bathroom. Chloe had excellent grades, sweet looks, and a cheerful personality. She was the typical "good student" in the eyes of teachers and parents. While I had average grades, ordinary looks, and a somewhat introverted personality. Simply put, Chloe and I were two completely different types of people. The reason Chloe chose to become friends with me was precisely because I was too "ordinary." It was my "ordinariness" that could highlight her "excellence." I knew long ago that Chloe often badmouthed me behind my back. She said my brain wasn't very sharp, looking clumsy. And I always smelled of medicine. If she didn't pity me, she would have cut ties with me long ago. Chloe was right, my family was indeed pitiful. My dad died when I was very young. These years, my mom raised me alone through untold hardships. Eventually causing her to fall ill from overwork, relying on long-term medication to regulate her body. But none of this mattered. I completely didn't care about Chloe's opinion of me. After all, I didn't genuinely want to be friends with her either. I first noticed Chloe. It was in the placement test when we just entered high school. She took first place in the grade. From that moment on. I silently added her to my list of candidates. Of course, I also worried that in the next three years, Chloe's grades would decline. Although my candidate list was updated every semester. But switching candidates at will midway would still be troublesome. Fortunately, Chloe's grades remained very stable. Until the last mock exam before the SATs, she never fell out of the top five in the grade. And she didn't plan to go the route of getting admitted via competitions. It can be said that for me, Chloe was the perfect candidate. Whether I could turn the tables from an average science student to get into a top Ivy League university. It all depended on her. 4. Actually, it wasn't that I hadn't tried to study hard. But wanting to excel in studies was really so hard. Even relying on the foundation laid by that middle school classmate, I only barely lasted half a semester. Starting from the second semester of sophomore year, my grades plummeted. Maybe some people are just not born for studying. Anyway, I felt like I wasn't cut out for it. It might be simpler to think about how to kill someone instead. I used my spare time in three years of high school to frantically catch up on various mystery and detective novels. I also watched quite a few documentaries related to homicide cases. I found that the police's detection methods were too formidable. Not only were they rigorous in thinking, but they also possessed many high-tech means. Almost making criminals have nowhere to hide. I conceived several plans to kill Chloe in my mind. But felt they weren't ideal enough, with too many loopholes. Once the police determined the case was a homicide, they would hold on tight and investigate to the end. So I had to work hard to make Chloe's death look like an accident. Just like the previous two times. After some hard thinking, I roughly outlined a plan. Although Chloe looked like a good student on the surface, in reality, to pursue excitement, she would also do some out-of-line things. For example, dating a gangster boyfriend outside school, or hiding in the bathroom to smoke secretly. So I decided to use this point to let Chloe walk to a dead end herself. Two days before leaving school, I kept dropping hints in Chloe's ear, suggesting that on the night before leaving school, we should indulge ourselves recklessly. I deliberately asked her if she dared to sneak onto the rooftop of the teaching building to drink during evening self-study. At first, Chloe was a bit hesitant, asking me how to bring alcohol into the school. I said you're silly, just ask a day student friend to bring it in. This time Chloe went silent. I didn't try to persuade her anymore, just dropped a sentence: "If you don't dare, forget it. I'll go by myself later. I don't want to leave regrets for my high school life." "Who said I don't dare? I was just thinking about what kind of wine to buy." Sure enough, Chloe took the bait. I continued to lay the bait and said: "Then how about just buying a few cans of beer?" Chloe glanced at me with disdain and said triumphantly: "That's boring. I'll ask my friend to bring a few bottles of whiskey over for you to taste later." I held back the urge to laugh out loud, pretending to be very envious, constantly praising her for being awesome. ... On the night before leaving school, Chloe really brought two bottles of whiskey. But when we were about to go upstairs to the rooftop, I deliberately grabbed Chloe at the stairwell and said weakly: "Chloe, maybe we should forget it. What if the dean catches us?" "It's this time already, what are you afraid of? Even if we get caught, it's fine, at most a scolding. We're about to take the SATs, they have to consider our mood." Chloe forcibly dragged my wrist. "Hurry up, follow me!" I symbolically resisted a couple of times, glancing at the surveillance camera at the stairwell when going upstairs. The rooftop door was just wrapped with a chain, not really locked. I deliberately followed behind Chloe, waiting for her to remove the chain and throw it aside before following her onto the rooftop. The cool evening breeze of early summer felt exceptionally comfortable. Chloe looked to be in a good mood, unusually excited. She urged me to pour out the snacks bought from the school supermarket, impatiently pulled out the cork herself, and poured the dark brown liquid into two disposable paper cups. "Cheers!" Chloe shouted, ignoring me, and drank the wine in the cup in one gulp. Judging from the expression on her face at first, the taste of this wine probably wasn't too good. I was still thinking, what if she didn't want to drink anymore. Fortunately, things went smoother than I expected. 5. That night, Chloe rambled a lot to me. She said her parents had actually lost feelings for each other long ago, yet they still pretended to be loving in front of her, making her feel disgusted. She said she had a younger brother ten years her junior at home, who was the apple of the whole family's eye, and no one cared about her at all. She said she finally survived these three years of high school and was about to be liberated. She said after the SATs were over, she wanted to go on a graduation trip to the South, and asked if I wanted to go together. With flushed cheeks and intoxicated eyes, Chloe held my hand and apologized to me. She said she shouldn't have badmouthed me behind my back before. Slurring her words, she said I was her best friend. My heart was unwavering, only feeling that she must have drunk too much. In fact, Chloe really had drunk too much. Her steps were staggering, her whole body uncontrollably falling down. I supported her to stand in front of the half-person-high railing to enjoy the breeze. When the rusty railing broke, Chloe's body lost balance. In panic, she reached out to me. And I just gave a gentle push. Chloe's figure disappeared from the edge of the rooftop. A dull thud of a heavy object landing sounded. After a brief silence, a commotion came from downstairs. I poured a large mouthful of wine for myself. Then closed my eyes and slumped in front of the rooftop railing, half of my body exposed. Until the sound of messy footsteps came to my ears. I barely opened my eyes, and the dean's pale face appeared before me, looking like a dead person. ... When Chloe's parents rushed to the school, I knelt before them, weeping and saying it was all my fault, blaming myself for killing Chloe. I shouldn't have agreed to Chloe going to the rooftop to drink. If I could have stopped her then, none of this would have happened. Chloe's mom tried to rush at me like crazy, screaming for me to return her daughter. The police at the scene firmly controlled her, signaling her to calm down first. The police retrieved the surveillance video from the stairwell. The footage showed that it was Chloe who forcibly dragged me up to the rooftop. The day student who brought alcohol for Chloe stated that Chloe had actively asked him for help. The broken railing on the rooftop showed no signs of being deliberately damaged by anyone. There were no signs of struggle on Chloe's body either. So, the main reason leading to this tragedy was Chloe violating school rules and running to the rooftop to drink privately. The secondary reason was that the rooftop railing had been in disrepair for years, and the school's management was improper. Facing the clear investigation results, Chloe's parents didn't come to trouble me anymore. I heard that to take into account the impact, the school also paid a large sum of money to Chloe's parents. After the SATs ended, I went back to school to get my diploma and quit all the class group chats when I got home. I remembered Chloe saying on the rooftop that day that she wanted to go on a graduation trip after the exams. It's a pity I didn't know which city she wanted to go to. I'd have to wait until I got into university to slowly help her fulfill this wish. Hope she can rest in peace and not blame me. Of course, if she can't rest in peace, I can't help it either. Whatever. The night the results were available, it might have been the most nervous day in my life. When the webpage finally refreshed, looking at my score, I couldn't help but weep with joy. You know, watching my best friend fall to her death with my own eyes was a huge psychological pressure. But for some reason, when my mom learned about my SAT score, she didn't seem that happy. She even advised me not to apply for too good a school, an ordinary one would do. I told her I wanted to apply to a top medical school and become a doctor. Unexpectedly, my mom's emotions suddenly became very agitated. She explicitly told me she absolutely wouldn't allow me to apply for medical majors. When my mom said this, her expression was scary serious, even startling me. "Sweetie, Mom doesn't mean anything else, it's just that being a doctor is too tiring, Mom doesn't want to see you work so hard." My mom's expression relaxed, stroking my head gently and said: "Be good, listen to Mom, choose another major." At that time, my mom's health was already very poor, looking very weak, no matter how much medicine she took, it was useless. I didn't want to make my mom angry, so I had to choose Finance. I heard this major makes it easier to make money after graduation.