6
Julian Harrison sat by the hospital bed, the muscles in his face trembling slightly with emotion.
Only then did I realize that I wasn’t dead.
Seeing my silence, he sighed and slowly began to tell me about my origins.
Eighteen years ago, Eleanor gave birth to a pair of twin girls. Before they were even a month old, one of the babies was accidentally suffocated by her.
Fearing her husband and mother–in–law would beat and scold her, she disguised herself as a cleaner and stole a similar–looking child from the hospital.
That child was me.
After I was stolen, my biological mother blamed herself immensely and developed depression.
She believed it was her negligence that allowed bad people to take advantage.
A year later, her depression worsened, and when Julian Harrison was not home, she jumped from the building.
For eighteen years, Julian Harrison had been searching for me, but there had been no news.
Large tears splattered onto my hand, and a sharp pain spread through my chest.
I had seen news about the CEO searching for his daughter before, and at the time, I just thought the blurry photo looked a bit like me.
When I was little, I also wondered why Brooke and I looked less and less alike.
*
Eleanor had insisted we were fraternal twins, so it was normal not to look alike.
Julian Harrison smiled through his tears, gently stroking my hair, his voice filled with relief.
“It’s a good thing you look exactly like your mother, and you have that red mole behind your ear… otherwise, Dad might have truly never seen you again…”
Thinking of my experience on the yacht, I felt an intense hatred for Arthur’s family.
Julian Harrison–no, should call him Dad now.
Dad said that those dark–skinned bodyguards were originally hired by him for protection, but some of them turned out to be traitors, colluding with outsiders to lure the loyal guards away.
After he dealt with his opponents and the traitors, he originally wanted to throw them all into the sea to feed the sharks, but he decided to respect my wishes and let me handle it myself.
A cold, sarcastic smile curled on my lips.
“Keep those dark–skinned bodyguards; they’re still useful.”
“I’ve already decided the fate of Arthur’s family.”
After staying in the hospital for a few days, Dad brought me home and held a formal introduction party.
I changed my name to Skylar Harrison.
Dad said he only wished for me to find joy in life and embrace all its beautiful scenery.
A month later, figuring the time was right, I boarded the yacht again.
Since I was shot and taken away last time, Cassie, Brooke, and my adoptive parents had been confined to a cabin, unable to move.
I knocked on the door twice.
Inside, I heard several people pushing and shoving each other.
Eleanor’s voice was hoarse: “You go! I had three men yesterday!”
Arthur sounded a bit troubled: “My ass is still killing me…”
Cassie sounded impatient: “What a pain to be stuck with you guys…
“Those dark–skinned men come every day, who can stand it…?”
After a noisy commotion, it was Brooke who opened the door.
Seeing me, her eyes widened in disbelief.
The others inside immediately lunged at me, their mouths spewing vile, ugly insults.
But their fists and kicks hadn’t even landed on me before the bodyguard beside me kicked them away.
Eleanor crawled to my feet, grabbing my hand and crying, “Skylar, Mom was wrong, can you forgive Mom, please?”
“Do you remember? When you had a fever as a child, Mom even personally brewed ginger tea for you…”
1 looked down at her, my voice cold.
“Oh? Which time was that fever? Was it the time you punished me for getting higher scores than Brooke by making me stand in the rain in the
yard?
Or was it the time I was so hungry I picked up a chicken leg Brooke dropped on the ground, and you locked me in the doghouse in the dead of winter, giving me a fever?”
“As for the ginger tea you mentioned… oh, I remember now. It’s because you were too stingy to buy me a dollar packet of cold medicine, but you turned around and bought Brooke a thirty–dollar burger, right?”
Eleanor’s face flushed then paled, and she stammered, releasing my hand.
Arthur violently kicked Eleanor away, his eyes murky with despair as he pleaded with me.
“All those things were your mom’s doing. Dad knew nothing about it
“I didn’t care enough about you before, but I’ll make it up to you now. Oh, by the way, Dad even saved some money for your college living expenses, your sister doesn’t even have any!”
He stumbled, scrambling to pull out a bank card from a nearby suitcase.
Eleanor and Brooke were utterly shocked, pointing fingers and cursing him.
1 took the card, and under his hopeful gaze, i flipped it into the sea.
“Living expenses? Or was it the bride price for selling me?”
Arthur trembled like a sleve: “Y–you… how did you know…?”
Soon, he reacted and shouted: “You’ve been reborn too, haven’t you?! Haven’t you?!”
Facing his and Eleanor’s terrified and uncertain gazes,
In my previous life, when they tied me up on the balcony, they had mentioned it.
As early as the day I scored 720 points on my college entrance exam estimation, he had already sold me for a million dollars to his good friend’s son.
That family had some money, but unfortunately, the son was intellectually disabled.
So, they didn’t hesitate to spend money to buy a high–IQ daughter–in–law to improve their genes.
Even without the yacht girl gig, they would have found a reason to tame me and send me to that family.
Arthur still tried to argue, but his mouth opened and closed, unable to utter a single word.
1 looked at Brooke, who was uncharacteristically silent the entire time.
Her eyes welled up with tears, and she suddenly knelt down, frantically kowtowing to me.
“I’m sorry, sister, I shouldn’t have disobeyed you.”
“But the one who killed you wasn’t me, it was Mom and Dad. Please let me go…”
“In this life, I won’t fight you for the CEO’s wife position…”
I chuckled.
Brooke had also been reborn.
7
She slammed her head against the floor with loud thuds, quickly covering her face with blood.
Eleanor tenderly pulled Brooke into her embrace, and Arthur, with a pained expression, said:
“Skylar, even if we wronged you in our past lives, we’ve already apologized and kowtowed to you. Won’t you forgive us?!”
“Do you really want to see Dad die in front of you to be satisfied?!”
The bodyguard finally couldn’t stand it, spat forcefully, and kicked him to the ground.
“How do people like you deserve to be the young lady’s family?!”
The Arthur family, along with Cassie, stood frozen in place.
That day, Dad had rushed away with me, unconscious from the gunshot,
They thought I had been taken by the CEO, unaware of the real reason.
I simply found a clean sofa, sat down, and leisurely explained the full story of my background.
Arthur was furious after hearing it, pouncing on Eleanor, hitting and biting her.
“Eleanor! You wretched woman, you suffocated my own daughter…”
Eleanor sobbed uncontrollably, cursing him hysterically in return.
“If it weren’t for your dead old hag of a mother constantly scolding me, I wouldn’t have stolen someone else’s child…”
Brooke was both angry and annoyed, constantly cursing Eleanor for saddling her with another sister.
“Do you know how much I wished I was an only child?!”
“Having a sister like Skylar, do you know how inferior I felt growing up?!”
I coldly watched the family of three beat each other.
I knew Brooke was jealous of me, even hated me.
She stubbornly believed that classmates liked me more because I was prettier and had better grades.
But she never considered who would like a snitch who cried and ran to the teacher at the drop of a hat, or someone who pushed people down and then played the victim?
She was disliked purely because of her bad character.
