chapter 1

Chapter 1

The day Yao came home, our whole family sat down to eat together, and the atmosphere was tense and awkward.

She sat across from me-dark-skinned, small, rustic; her eyes sparkled at the sight of the delicious dishes on the table, but she didn’t dare pick up her chopsticks.

Eventually, she couldn’t help herself and picked up a piece of spicy chicken.

Mom quickly moved the dish in front of me, afraid I wouldn’t be able to reach it.

“Shuangshuang loves spicy chicken the most. Mom made it especially for you-come on, eat.”

The light in Yao’s eyes faded.

Seeing this, I picked up the whole dish, split it in half-half for myself, half for her.

“We have similar tastes; we both love meat. We really are sisters.”

When I said the word “sisters,” everyone was surprised, especially Yao, whose mouth hung open in shock.

This is a story told from the Female Lead Yao’s perspective-a story of hardship.

She is the real heiress switched at birth, while I am the false phoenix who took her place.

Even after my parents learned that I was not related to them by blood, they still loved and cherished me.

The condition for letting Yao return home was for the Yang Family to relinquish custody of me, so I could continue to stay in the wealthy family as the eldest daughter.

Yao’s family lived in the countryside. They didn’t want to raise a daughter at all and would have happily married off fourteen-year-old Yao in exchange for her brother’s bride price.

My parents spent a fortune, and the Yang Family gladly helped handle the adoption paperwork.

So my home remained my home, only now with Yao in it as well.

The biological daughter, stunted and timid from malnutrition, seemed like an outsider, forming a stark contrast to tall, slender me.

After dinner, I went back to my room to study. Mom came in to talk to me.

“Shuangshuang, with a little sister suddenly in the house, do you blame your father and me?”

“No.”

Mom hadn’t expected me to answer so directly, and she probed cautiously, “Will it feel strange having someone else at home from now on?”

“In our 3,200-square-meter house, I wouldn’t even notice another person.”

Mom started to wipe her tears. “Is it because you’ve found out about your origins, and think Uncle and Auntie from the Yang Family are your real parents, so you don’t want to acknowledge us anymore?”

“Why would you think that?”

Mom took my hand.

“In an ordinary family, even having a second child can make the first one jealous. You’ve always been our pampered one, and now you’re not fighting or complaining-are you feeling distant from us, worried you’re not our little princess anymore?”

When I fell silent, Mom quickly explained:

“Shuangshuang, I’ve raised you since you were little. You’ve called me ‘Mom’ for fourteen years, and I only recognize you as my child. No one will ever let you suffer, and I would never want you to feel anxious at home. Your father and I talked it over-if you don’t like Yao, we’ll send her to a private boarding school. Our family of three can be just like before!”

I let out a sigh.

From Yao’s perspective, her adoptive parents neither loved nor cared for her-they barely fed her, and even wanted to marry her off for a bride price. Her biological parents are clearly wealthy, yet treat her as invisible. It’s truly heartbreaking.

When I first read the story, the mother’s character made me so angry. I couldn’t understand why she’d turn against her own daughter-did she have any maternal love at all?

But from another perspective, as Lin Shuangshuang, I realized she didn’t just have maternal love-she had it in abundance.

When her biological child came home, the first thing she thought of was to give me enough security and confirm my place in the family.

She might be Yao’s antagonist, but to me, she is the best mom.

I put my arm around her shoulders. “Mom, Uncle and Auntie from the Yang Family never raised me for a day. If I had ended up with them, I would have been nothing more than a tool for a bride price. The debt of raising me outweighs that of giving birth. No matter what, you two will always be my only parents.”

My soft-hearted, teary-eyed mother rushed over and hugged me. “Let Mom give you a hug!”

I hugged her sweetly for a while, then held her shoulders seriously. “But Yao is your daughter, too.”

Mom looked away.

“She just left home and came here. You should spoil her a little. You’ve spoiled me for fourteen years, but Yao missed out on those fourteen years.”

She looked at me with gratitude in her eyes.

I gently nudged her and said, “Go on.” It was as if a weight had been lifted from her heart; she hugged her silk comforter and walked briskly to Yao’s room.

Parental favoritism truly exists, but so often, the real key is how the favored child chooses to use that favoritism.

The original ending wasn’t happy.

After Yao died of stomach cancer, the male lead realized too late what she meant to him and went mad with grief. Our wedding was called off.

I developed depression, my father’s business went bankrupt, and my mother committed suicide by jumping off a building…

Though it may sound overly dramatic, I still believe in karma.

If Yao had grown up happy, how could our little family have ended up like that?

I knocked on my father’s door. “Transfer my sister to my school. We can look out for each other.”

According to the original story, after all my troublemaking, she was transferred to another elite private school and didn’t come home for a year.

Later, unable to keep up with her studies, she dropped out and eventually came to my school, where she continued to be bullied by me, suffering a miserable adolescence.

I’ll help her rewrite her story just a little-let her meet the male lead sooner.

I remember, the male lead goes to our school.