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The Monster Mother's Masterpiece
NovelMaster
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I filed three separate petitions to sever ties and terminate my parental rights over my high-school-aged daughter. The first time, the judge denied it: "Your daughter is still a minor. Motion denied."...
章節（4）
第1章
I filed three separate petitions to sever ties and terminate my parental rights over my high-school-aged daughter.
The first time, the judge denied it: "Your daughter is still a minor. Motion denied."
The second time, the judge warned me: "Unless there are extraordinary circumstances, you have a legal obligation to support her until she turns eighteen."
The third time, before the judge could even speak, I shoved a stack of evidence toward the bench.
"Your Honor, look through what I submitted. Once you do, you'll understand why I have to cut her out of my life."
The judge reviewed the evidence right there in court. His face instantly twisted in pure fury.
"Arrest her! How can someone like this exist in our world?!"
What I didn't expect was that the person he ordered arrested wasn't my daughter.
It was me.
"Lorraine Jiang, you call yourself a mother, yet you do this to your own flesh and blood?! You're a monster!"
"Your petition to sever parental ties is denied again! You will support her until she turns eighteen, period!"
The judge's face was flushed with utter rage.
He slammed his gavel down so hard it echoed through the room. A second later, bailiffs grabbed me and dragged me toward the door.
He held me in contempt of court and ordered me detained for twenty-four hours to teach me a lesson.
Sweat poured down my face, and I screamed out an appeal on the spot.
"Your Honor! Look closer at the evidence I gave you!"
"My daughter is a demon! She's fooled all of you! I have to cut ties with her!"
I shrieked at the top of my lungs while the officers wrestled me into the holding area.
Down in the gallery, reporters immediately thrust their cameras forward, capturing every second of my breakdown.
I wanted to explain to the press that this was all her scheme.
Before I could get another word out, the metal door slammed shut, locking me inside the cell.
Twenty-four hours later, when I was finally released and powered on my phone, it buzzed nonstop.
Notification chimes rang out for a solid minute before finally quieting down.
Most were missed calls and texts from my husband and coworkers wondering where I'd vanished to.
Aside from those, a breaking headline sitting at the number one spot on the trending page caught my eye.
Monster Mother Sues Minor Daughter Repeatedly, Fabricates Evidence to Manipulate Judge, Arrested in Court!
I clicked the link. The video of my courtroom meltdown had gone completely viral.
To farm more clicks, media outlets had edited the thumbnail to look grotesque, even photoshopping a pair of devil horns onto my head.
My hands shook with rage. I immediately went to the comments and started typing.
"Don't let Riley fool you! She's the real monster here!"
"This is exactly what she planned! She wants to suck the life out of me forever!"
In an instant, my comment was buried beneath a flood of new replies.
I didn't even have to guess—this online smear campaign was definitely Riley's doing.
She knew the public mindset inside and out. Between a middle-aged woman and a helpless teenage girl, the internet would always side with the vulnerable youth.
I'd had enough of her psychological games over the years. I had literally raised a demon under my roof.
No matter how brutal this path became, I would rip that mask off her face.
I pulled out my phone to dial another lawyer, but before I could, my legal counsel called me.
"Lorraine, the court just issued a formal injunction barring you from filing any more petitions against your daughter."
"If you insist on filing a fourth time, you could face criminal charges and prison time."
His words hit me like a bucket of ice water.
Fine. If the law wouldn't hold Riley accountable, I would expose her to the whole world myself!
The moment I stepped up to my front door, my daughter ran out, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"Mom, why do you hate me so much? What did I do wrong?"
"Everyone online is saying awful things about you, but I know you must have your reasons! Please, tell me!"
Seeing Riley's innocent, tear-stained face only made the rage inside me boil hotter.
Disgusted, I violently shoved her hand away and snapped, "Save the act. Who's it for?"
"There are no cameras here right now. You can drop the drama."
Riley parted her lips as if to speak, but the next second, a mob of journalists stormed out of the stairwell.
第2章
Cameras and microphones were shoved right into my face, accompanied by furious shouts.
"Ms. Jiang! How can you speak to your own daughter like that?!"
"We staked out here thinking there might be two sides to this story!"
"Instead, we catch you verbally abusing your own child in broad daylight!"
"People like you belong behind bars! We're putting this on the evening news!"
Riley immediately stepped in front of the cameras, holding back her tears and speaking in a trembling, fragile voice.
"No, please! Don't blame my mom!"
"It's my fault... I must have done something wrong to make her treat me like this..."
Her words drove the reporters into an even greater frenzy.
They pointed right at my nose, practically spitting in anger.
"Look at her! She's on the verge of tears and she's still defending you!"
"You dragged her to court three times trying to abandon her! Are you even human?!"
I glared at Riley with pure venom. She kept her wide-eyed, helpless expression firmly in place.
Her trick had worked again.
Ever since she was little, she knew how to weaponize public sympathy to get whatever she wanted.
Aside from me, probably no one in this world knew just how sickeningly vile she truly was beneath that sweet face.
I stared straight into her eyes, enunciating every syllable.
"Just you wait, Riley."
"Sooner or later, everyone will see who you really are."
With that, I turned on my heel and walked away.
I didn't look back once, letting the reporters' curses bounce off my shoulders.
When I reached the courtyard near the apartment gate, a figure suddenly darted out from the bushes and pulled me aside into the shadows.
I assumed it was another vulture trying to squeeze more clickbait out of my misery.
To my shock, the middle-aged woman looked at me and said quietly, "There's more to this case than meets the eye, isn't there?"
Looking at this woman, roughly my own age, an odd sense of trust welled up inside me.
Still, I didn't let my guard down easily. I gave a flat response. "The truth will come out soon enough."
She handed me a business card, her tone dead serious.
"My name is Helen Ho. I'm an investigative journalist for the Metro Daily."
"I'm a mother, just like you. I truly believe that no mother pushes her own daughter into court unless she's been driven completely to the brink."
"Demanding to sever parental ties completely... there has to be something massive you're hiding, right?"
Seeing the genuine concern in Helen's eyes, I reached into my pocket and handed her a flash drive.
"All the proof is in here. Everything you want to know."
"You're a mother too. Once you watch it, you'll understand why I had to do this."
"Promise me one thing: help me expose Riley for what she really is."
Helen took the drive, her expression heavy and solemn.
She took a deep breath and gave me her word. "Speaking as a mother, I promise you, I'll make sure justice is served."
She turned and hurried off into the dusk.
I stayed hidden in the shadows until the reporters in the hallway finally dispersed, and only then did I slip back into the apartment.
The moment I stepped inside, my daughter dropped the wounded act. She smirked at me.
"Look who finally crawled back."
"I thought those reporters would scare you so bad you'd dig a hole and bury yourself outside."
I trembled with rage, my eyes burning with hatred. "Enjoy it while you can. Everyone is about to find out the truth."
第3章
I marched straight into my bedroom and locked the door behind me.
Before going to sleep, I pulled Helen's card from my pocket and dialed her number.
"Have you watched the footage? Can you put the truth out first thing tomorrow morning?"
Helen's voice on the line was impossible to read. She hesitated before answering.
"Don't worry. People are definitely going to see the truth."
After hanging up, I went to sleep, feeling a heavy weight lift from my chest.
Thinking about how Riley's true nature would be exposed tomorrow brought me immense relief.
Early the next morning, I was jarred awake by a deafening commotion outside my window.
I pulled back the curtains and peered down. The entire driveway was swarming with reporters, camera crews, and angry onlookers.
They were all screaming at the top of their lungs.
"Lorraine Jiang! Get down here if you've got the guts! We have questions for you!"
Seeing the sheer scale of the crowd, I paused, confused.
Did the truth already break? Were they all scrambling to get an exclusive interview with me to apologize?
A split second later, a voice from the street shattered that hope completely.
"Lorraine, you shameless psycho! If I ever see your face in public, I'll beat you senseless!"
Sensing something was horribly wrong, I pulled up my phone.
Sure enough, the top three trending topics on social media were all about me.
Exclusive! The Horrifying Truth Behind Why Lorraine Jiang Sued Her Daughter!
I tapped on the link. The footage Helen had uploaded was indeed the videos from my flash drive—the candid clips of my daily life with Riley.
The first clip was set at the dining table. I had intentionally served Riley a plate of spicy mapo tofu.
"Riley, eat up. Tofu is healthy for you."
Riley looked visibly hesitant. "Mom, I'm in high school now... how can you still not remember I have a severe soy allergy?"
In the video, I instantly flew into a rage, scraping the entire plate of tofu into her bowl and forcing her to eat it.
"Allergy my foot! Don't you think I know what you're allergic to?! You're just being a picky brat!"
"Finish every bite, or don't even think about sleeping tonight!"
Riley choked down the entire bowl while fighting back tears.
A few minutes later, angry red hives broke out all across her skin, and her breathing turned into a ragged wheeze.
"Mom, it's an allergic reaction... please, take me to the emergency room..."
In the footage, I simply sneered, completely indifferent.
"Stop being so dramatic! You think your little performance works on me? I'm not playing along!"
I walked away from the table, and the video cut to black.
Within ten minutes, the comment section exploded with thousands of replies, every single one tearing me to shreds.
"Is this Lorraine woman insane?! Her daughter was literally having an anaphylactic shock and she refused to take her to the ER?! That's attempted murder!"
"This level of psychotic control is terrifying. I pray Riley escapes that toxic household and gets far away from that monster!"
"This is the first time I actually support severing parental ties! The judge needs to reverse the ruling—Riley deserves so much better!"
Reading the sheer vitriol, my heart seized with white-hot fury.
I clicked on the second video, another piece of evidence I had given Helen.
The timestamp in the corner read September 17th, a day when temperatures soared past a hundred degrees.
Riley was about to head to school wearing a short-sleeved polo uniform when I barked at her to stop.
"You think you're walking out looking like that?! Put your heavy jacket on right now!"
I forcefully shoved her into a thick winter school jacket.
Within seconds, beads of sweat rolled down her face. She gasped for air, pleading, "Mom, it's scorching outside. I'm going to pass out from heatstroke."
My face on camera was stern and merciless. "Girls your age need to have some modesty! Showing your bare arms is completely inappropriate!"
"And don't you dare think about taking it off when you get to class! I'll be checking the classroom monitors. If I see you without it, you're dead meat!"
The video ended with Riley stumbling out the door, sweltering inside the suffocating layers.
Just as I was about to scroll down, Helen's call buzzed onto my screen.
"Is this the 'truth' you were talking about?"
第4章
Helen's voice trembled with sheer disgust.
"No wonder the judge threw your petition out the window the second he saw your evidence!"
"You are a suffocating, abusive control freak! You don't deserve to be a mother!"
Sweat broke out across my forehead, and I scrambled to explain into the phone.
"You don't understand! Riley was just being picky, she was never allergic! Don't fall for her act!"
"And making her wear the jacket had a reason! Her teachers complained to me multiple times about her indecent behavior at school! I had no choice!"
"Please, you have to believe me!"
Helen went quiet on the other end, sounding slightly hesitant, as if processing my words.
After a long pause, she spoke softly. "I'll give you one last chance. I'm going to dig deeper into this."
"I hope I actually find what I'm looking for."
She hung up without another word.
Trapped inside my bedroom, all I could do was wait for her to uncover the full story and clear my name.
Looking out the window at the reporters and protestors whipped into a frenzy by the media, the resentment in my heart grew heavier.
When the truth finally saw the light of day, I would make Riley pay for every ounce of misery she'd inflicted on me over the years.
The next morning, my phone rang again.
It wasn't Helen. It was the courthouse.
"Ms. Jiang, regarding the case between you and your daughter, the court has agreed to hold an emergency rehearing tomorrow afternoon."
"Your presence is mandatory."
After hanging up, I nearly jumped for joy.
It worked! The court must have discovered Riley's true colors and decided to reconsider the petition!
A second later, a push notification shattered my fleeting happiness.
Lorraine Jiang, just wait until tomorrow! I can't wait to watch an abusive bitch like you get locked away in prison!
Before I could process it, another message popped up.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. Monsters like you should just die!
Then a third. A fourth...
I realized something had gone horribly wrong. Opening Twitter, I found that Helen had published our entire private conversation online.
Underneath, she had attached two damning pieces of evidence.
First was a certified allergy test from the hospital: a severe soy allergy, clearly documented in black and white.
Second was an on-camera interview with Riley's teachers at school, every single one praising her as an exceptionally polite, bright, and modest student.
At the end of the broadcast, Helen looked straight into the lens.
"Lorraine Jiang, why do you keep lying?"
"The public needs to see your true face!"
"Right now, I am launching a public petition demanding that the court reopen this case—so Riley can be freed from this monster's grip and start a brand-new life!"
I tapped the petition link. Nearly a million people had already signed their real names, demanding an immediate rehearing.
So that was why the court had called me.
Once again, Riley had brilliantly manipulated the court of public opinion to cast me straight into the abyss.
The next afternoon, police escorted me through the courthouse entrance.
A sea of people hurled insults at me along the barricades, and some even pelted our vehicle with rotten eggs.
Without a police escort, I wouldn't have made it through the front doors alive.
The gallery inside was packed to the brim. Every pair of eyes bored into me, burning with hatred, as if they wanted to tear me apart with their bare hands.
Helen stood before the bench, holding up a thick binder of documents.
"Your Honor, I have conclusive evidence proving that Lorraine Jiang has subjected Riley Jiang to prolonged emotional and physical abuse!"
"I request that the court review this file!"
Staring at the thick stack of papers in her hands, I knew the reality.
Once that binder was accepted into the record, I would be branded a monster forever.
The judge gestured for the bailiff to retrieve the documents.
Right before handing them over, Helen paused, staring down at the papers as if struck by a realization.
She suddenly blurted out to the judge, "Wait. Something isn't right here!"