My Brother Was the Impostor All Along - Chapter 1

I was the legitimate daughter of the Princess Royal.

Then a girl appeared at our gates, claiming she was the real daughter.

A blood test proved her right.

My brother sprang to his feet, pointed in my face, and told me to get out.

I slapped him across the face.

“What are you barking at? You’re the one who was switched at birth!”

My mother was the Princess Royal of Great Yan, born to the imperial family and second to none in dignity.

She married my father, a penniless scholar who had passed the highest imperial examination. He married into her household, and they had a son and a daughter.

I had spent sixteen years dressed in silk and dining on delicacies when a girl appeared outside the residence. She called herself Yan Zhaozhao and said she was Mother’s real daughter.

One look at her face left the guards dumbstruck. She was the spitting image of Mother. They practically fell over themselves bringing her inside.

Mother froze.

Father froze.

So did I.

Only my brother, Yan Jingyao, smiled. His mouth curled upward in undisguised delight.

We had never got along. I despised his ignorance and idleness; he resented my lack of respect for an elder brother. At last, here was his chance to throw me out. Of course he was thrilled.

Mother had a bowl of clean water brought in and tested her blood against Yan Zhaozhao’s.

The two drops quickly mingled. She really was Mother’s daughter.

Mother swayed. She looked at me, her lips trembling.

“How… how can this be? Chengxi is my daughter.”

Through tears, Yan Zhaozhao told her story.

Her adoptive parents had raised her to be their son’s future wife, beating her, berating her, and working her like a slave.

On her deathbed, her adoptive mother had tried to force her to marry her idle adoptive brother. Zhaozhao refused and fled in the night—but beneath a window, she overheard a devastating secret.

Her grandmother had once been a senior servant in the Princess Royal’s household. When her daughter-in-law gave birth on the same day as the princess, the old woman bribed the midwife to switch the babies.

A few years later, the old hag retired to her home village. She took the princess’s true daughter with her to raise as a bride for the family, leaving the impostor here to enjoy a life of wealth and privilege.

As soon as Zhaozhao finished, every head in the room turned toward me.

Father frowned. Mother’s eyes brimmed with pain. Yan Jingyao wore the smug expression of a man watching his enemy meet her doom.

After a long silence, Mother spoke, her eyes red.

“The Chen family deserves death for this. I will see them punished to the fullest extent. But… Chengxi is innocent too. We can simply consider her our adopted daughter.”

Yan Jingyao could contain himself no longer.

“Mother, you can’t say that! If her grandmother hadn’t switched the babies, would Zhaozhao have suffered all those years? She suffered out there because Chen Chengxi stole her life!”

“Besides, tampering with the imperial bloodline is a crime punishable by the execution of all nine degrees of kinship! If you’re going to punish someone, start with the impostor!”

Oh? He had already changed my surname for me.

I rolled my eyes and let the dog finish barking.

“Enough!” Mother’s face darkened. “Chengxi’s identity may be false, but our love for her is real. As long as I live, she remains your sister!”

Father sighed.

“Wan’er, I know you have a kind heart,” he said gently. “But Zhaozhao is our flesh and blood. Every bit of love between you and Chengxi was stolen from her. Keeping Chengxi here would only rub salt into Zhaozhao’s wounds.”

Everyone said Mother ruled the residence. But she was trusting and easily swayed. Beneath it all, Father was the one making the decisions.

And he had always been partial. His precious legitimate son, Yan Jingyao, filled his heart and his thoughts. He had little affection to spare for me.

Sure enough, a few coaxing words from him were enough to shake Mother’s resolve.

She looked from me to Yan Zhaozhao, torn between us, then covered her face and began to cry.

I finally lost patience.

“Wait a moment. Let’s think this through.”

“There are two children in this family. Why does the switched one have to be me?”