Chapter 2

My name is Alice, and I’m a mukbang influencer.

My mom named me Alice. She always said it came from the word ‘worthless’ or ‘bitch’ because that’s what I was to her. When I was born, she tried to suffocate me in the fields, but a local official saw her and fined our family five dollars. When I was six, the village mandated compulsory schooling, and my mom was forced to pay the fifteen dollars for my textbooks that semester. When I got my first period at twelve, I cried, thinking I was dying. My mom kicked me once before tossing me a tattered rag. She said it cost five cents a foot. It wasn’t until my brother was born that my mom stopped calling me ‘worthless’ every single day.

Sometimes, when I held my baby brother and he bit my face, giggling afterward, my mom would actually praise me, saying I was at least useful for something, for comforting her precious boy. But honestly, I never liked my brother. My favorite was always my sister, a little girl who was soft and pink when she was born, who never bit my face, and whose first word was “big sister.”

But she died, nine years ago.

My mom said she crawled into the washing machine herself and was shredded to death. My mom even went to the appliance store in the city and caused a huge scene, sitting by the storefront for an entire month until she extorted fifty thousand dollars in compensation. Then, she and my brother moved into a new house in town. Even my dad, who’d been working out of state for years, rushed back, smoking premium cigars in the new house.

They were overjoyed, practically feasting on blood money, celebrating as a family.