Julian came to the orphanage to pick a sister. All the girls crowded around, praying they would be the lucky one chosen. I was the only one hiding in a closet, fast asleep. I thought that by doing this, I could escape the miserable fate of my past life—becoming the Sterling family's adopted daughter, and eventually, Julian's wife. I thought I could finally live a free, happy life this time around. But when I woke up, Julian was standing right in front of the closet doors. He smiled and asked, "Luna, come home with me. Okay?" 01 When Julian's face appeared in front of me, I honestly thought I was still stuck in my nightmare. It wasn't until the orphanage director called my name sternly, "Luna, what are you doing sleeping in here?" I snapped back to reality and realized this wasn't a dream. Seeing me frozen in shock, the director reached in and pulled me out of the closet. She smoothed my collar and pushed me toward Mr. and Mrs. Sterling. "You fell asleep, and Young Master Julian insisted we shouldn't wake you." "We've all been waiting for you." Julian, the young master in question, was standing in front of his parents. He looked at me with a faint smile playing on his lips. The Julian standing before me right now was very different from the cold, distant Julian etched into my memory. He initiated the greeting: "Hello, Luna." I didn't know why, but hearing my name coming from his mouth felt incredibly bizarre. I frowned and quickly averted my gaze. My mind was racing. They had so many other girls to choose from. Why did they insist on waiting for me? "Waiting for me? For what?" The director bent down to explain: "They want to adopt you. Luna is finally going to have a home, with a mom, a dad, and a big brother." The normally strict, unsmiling director was actually smiling at me. I guess she was genuinely happy for me. For an orphan, being adopted is the ultimate stroke of luck. But the director didn't know: I had been reborn. I knew Julian was coming to the orphanage today to pick a sister, which is exactly why I deliberately hid in the closet. "Luna, come home with us, okay?" Mrs. Sterling took my hand, her voice gentle: "Julian has always wanted a little sister. From now on, you'll be his sister." This scene was playing out exactly like my past life. Memories from that life flashed through my mind like a slideshow. I immediately yanked my hand back and looked up at the director. "Director, I don't want them to adopt me." My words shocked everyone in the room. The most intense reaction came from Julian. His brows furrowed as he asked, "Why not?" "Because I don't want to be your sister." Even though I flatly rejected him, Julian didn't show a single trace of anger. Instead, his tone grew even softer, laced with an almost imperceptible indulgence. "Then you don't have to be my sister. Just come back to the Sterling estate with me and live with us. How about that?" The director discreetly tugged on my sleeve, but she couldn't stop me from rejecting Julian a second time. "No." I thought Julian would just give up. But when the director tentatively asked the Sterlings if they wanted to choose a different girl, Julian suddenly spoke up, his voice loud and clear: "Mom, I only want her." He said, "She is the only one who looks exactly like my sister." 02 In my past life, the reason Julian chose me out of all the girls was also because I looked a bit like his deceased younger sister. Back then, when I found out I was chosen, I thought the heavens were finally blessing me. I was taken to the Sterling estate and renamed Luna Sterling. I was given my very own room in their massive, luxurious mansion. Even though I knew that room didn't truly belong to me, I was still incredibly content. Mrs. Sterling told me, "Children from orphanages naturally have a certain... lower-class demeanor. The way they speak and act simply isn't presentable." So, I worked tirelessly to erase all my old habits, becoming less and less like my true self. Mrs. Sterling was incredibly strict with me. I was forced to practice the piano for over twelve hours every single day. Even when my instructor explicitly told her I had absolutely no natural talent for it, Mrs. Sterling still stood over me, forcing me to practice daily. But some things just can't be forced. "I'm sorry, Mom. I still can't play it right." Every time I apologized, Mrs. Sterling would look at me with even more affection and comfort me. "It's okay. As long as my Luna keeps trying, you'll definitely be able to play it perfectly one day." I only found out later that playing the piano was her deceased daughter's favorite hobby. Mrs. Sterling wasn't nurturing me; she was just using me to find the shadow of someone else. But I didn't care about any of that. A dying fish doesn't care if the water it's given is clean; it just wants to survive. Water to a fish was like love to me. As long as I had it, I was happy. I practiced the piano even harder. I tried even harder to please Mrs. Sterling. We began to look more and more like a real mother and daughter. Until the night of Julian's engagement party. He was drugged, and I just happened to accidentally walk into his room. When Mr. Sterling saw Julian and me, he was so furious he passed out. Mrs. Sterling slapped me hard across the face. "I never should have brought you into this family." Julian stared at me in silence. I couldn't read the emotion in his eyes. But I assumed he was regretting it too. Regretting that he had ever chosen me to be his sister. "I don't know what happened. I didn't drug my brother." I tried desperately to defend myself, but no one believed me. So much so that later, when Julian cheated on me and betrayed our marriage countless times, he would always say: "You were willing to use drugs just to force your own brother to marry you. Everything happening now is just your karma." Julian hated me. That's why, after we got married, he loved humiliating me in public. Many people in our social circle took bets on how long our marriage would last. "A year, tops. Once she has the kid, Julian will kick her to the curb." Unfortunately, the outcome shocked everyone. Julian and I were entangled in a toxic, agonizing marriage for nineteen years. Even after I died, the words Wife of Julian Sterling were carved into my tombstone. "Luna, tell me the truth. Why don't you want to be adopted by the Sterling family?" After Julian and his parents left, the director called me into her office. I stayed silent for a long time before throwing out a random excuse: "I don't want to leave you and everyone else." The director sighed and urged me to reconsider. I knew she meant well. She just wanted me to have a better life. But I refused to repeat the nightmare of my past life. I didn't want anything to do with Julian ever again. However, a massive fire that night destroyed all my plans. 03 "Did you start the fire?" In the hospital, I glared coldly at Julian and interrogated him. "No," Julian quickly explained. "The fire department already confirmed it was caused by faulty, aging electrical wiring." After saying that, he let out a self-deprecating chuckle. "Luna, you think entirely too poorly of me." In this life, I had only met him two or three times, yet his attitude toward me carried a bizarre, inexplicable familiarity. "I just want to help you." "If you agree to come home with me, I'll pay for all of the director's medical bills." During the fire last night, the director suffered severe, third-degree burns while trying to save us. I scoffed coldly, mocking him: "Taking advantage of someone's tragedy. Do you consider yourself a good person?" Julian didn't try to defend himself. He simply said, "Luna, if you don't want to be my sister, that's fine." "You can just be fostered by the Sterling family." He was coaxing me, compromising step by step. But that only made me more suspicious. "Why are you so obsessed with bringing me back to the Sterling house?" Julian replied, "Because my mom has been missing my sister terribly lately, and you look a lot like her." "I just want to bring you home to keep her company." I was highly skeptical of his excuse. After all, his behavior toward me was completely abnormal. I asked him, "Is that really it?" Julian hesitated for a fraction of a second before nodding. "That's really it." Even though I desperately wanted to avoid Julian, the director was still lying critically ill in a hospital bed. On the ride to the Sterling estate, Julian kept trying to talk to me, but I remained stubbornly silent. He probably realized he was being annoying, so he softened his tone, trying to justify himself. "The Sterling family can provide you with a much better life. No matter how you look at it, it's better than the orphanage." "Luna, don't blame me. I'm doing this for your own good." I'm doing this for your own good... The Julian from my past life used to say that exact same phrase. Julian hated me for the vast majority of my life. It wasn't until I was dying that his attitude toward me finally softened slightly. But by then, I was beyond medical help. My only companion every day was a small cat. One day, on a whim, Julian returned to the villa to see me and ordered someone to throw away the cat I had been raising for six months. I asked him, "Why?" He looked down at me and said, "I'm doing this for your own good." I knew then that when he said "for your own good," he didn't actually mean it. It was just a convenient excuse to satisfy his own selfish desires and need for control. Or perhaps it was just another method of torturing me. After all, that was his modus operandi. Whatever I loved, he destroyed. ... As soon as the car pulled up to the Sterling estate, I saw Mrs. Sterling already waiting by the front door. Julian had told her in advance that he was bringing me back. So she had instructed the staff to prepare a room on the second floor early on. "Luna, this will be your room from now on." Mrs. Sterling affectionately took my hand. "Do you like it?" I lowered my eyes, staring at my hand enveloped in hers for a moment, then gently pulled it away. I was no longer the Luna from my past life, desperately starving for a mother's love. "Mrs. Sterling, this is your biological daughter's room, isn't it?" "There are so many of her old things in here, and you've kept them all perfectly preserved." "It's obvious you cherish these things deeply." "If I stay in this room and accidentally break something, it would definitely break your heart." "I noticed there are guest rooms downstairs. I'll just stay in one of those." Mrs. Sterling looked at me, clearly wanting to argue. "But..." Julian cut her off. "Mom." "If Luna wants to stay downstairs, have the maids prepare a room for her." I glanced at Julian, who was unexpectedly speaking up for me. He probably didn't know that my main reason for refusing the second-floor room was because his bedroom was right next door. In my past life, before Julian's engagement, we actually got along fairly well. During my teenage years, Mrs. Sterling even asked me, "Luna, what kind of boys do you like?" I looked at Julian, who had just returned from a run, and joked, "I like boys like my big brother." That innocent, offhand joke eventually became the "proof" that I drugged him years later. Every time I tried to defend myself: "I didn't drug you." Julian would grab me by the throat and counter: "You said you liked me when you were sixteen." "You loved me for all those years, and eventually you even stooped to drugging me to force me to marry you. Why don't you have the guts to admit it now?" 04 Probably because I was back in this same villa, that night I dreamt about things from my past life. During the final days of my life, my doctor told me, "Being alone all day like this isn't good for you. Call your family or friends to come keep you company." "I don't have any family." As for friends... My best friend in the past used to be Julian's fiancée, Chloe Evans. It wasn't until the fifth year of my marriage to Julian that Chloe finally returned from abroad. Julian personally picked her up from the airport and threw a massive welcome-back party for her. Someone intentionally recorded a video at the party and sent it to me—the two of them sitting in a dimly lit corner, kissing passionately. A video that was only a few seconds long. I watched it on loop for an entire night. It was also that night that I made my final decision. I aborted what would have been my second child with Julian and handed him divorce papers. He asked me, "What's your reason?" I showed him the video on my phone. "Julian, I know you were forced to marry me." "But now that Chloe is back, and it looks like she's forgiven you, let's get a divorce. We can both move on and live our own lives." Actually, I had brought up divorce multiple times before that. But he rejected me every single time. I thought that with Chloe back, he would finally agree. But Julian still ripped my carefully prepared divorce papers to shreds and deleted the video from my phone. ... "Luna? Luna?" I jolted awake in a panic and instinctively slapped the face leaning over me. The teenage Julian looked down at me, his eyes filled with grievance. "I heard you crying from the hallway, so I came in to check on you." With that, he turned and walked toward the door. He paused at the doorway, looking back over his shoulder. "Hurry up and get ready for breakfast. We're going to be late for school." Just like in my past life, the Sterling family transferred me to Julian's elite high school. Seeing me following behind him into the classroom, someone asked, "Julian, who is she?" Julian introduced me: "Her name is Luna. She's currently staying with my family." In a daze, I remembered my past life. Before the drugging incident ruined everything, Julian always introduced me by saying, "This is my little sister, Luna." I looked at Julian, who was standing just a step away. I suddenly realized that he seemed very different from the Julian in my memories. He didn't act like the teenage Julian from my past life, nor did he act like the older Julian who was constantly seeking revenge and torturing me. My heart skipped a beat as a sudden thought struck me. "Julian." "Julian." Just as I called his name, preparing to voice my suspicions, someone else called him at the exact same time. Julian glanced at me, then looked past me toward the door. I turned around as well. The person standing in the doorway calling him was Chloe Evans. "Julian, wait for me after school. I need to talk to you." After saying that, Chloe finally noticed me standing next to him. The look she gave me was anything but friendly. She looked me up and down like she was sizing up an opponent. "So you're the girl staying at the Sterling house?" After all, she was my best friend in my past life. The second Chloe looked at me, I could feel a very obvious, palpable hostility radiating from her. This was completely different from my past life. In my past life, when Chloe found out I was Julian's sister, she immediately linked her arm through mine, affectionately called me Luna, and dragged me into her elite social circle. But right now, her attitude toward me was remarkably similar to the very last time I saw her in my past life. Our final meeting had ended terribly. I had asked her, "The security footage showed that the only people who entered Julian's room that day were you and me. I didn't drug him. So it was you, wasn't it?" Back then, I couldn't figure it out. She loved Julian so much. Why would she intentionally ruin their own engagement party? "Her name is Luna," Julian answered for me. Chloe looked at me, offered a tight, fake smile, and didn't say anything else. Later, as I sat at my desk, I noticed Chloe constantly turning around to glare at me. Even though I found it bizarre, I forced myself to ignore her, focus on the blackboard, and pay attention to the lesson. 05 In my past life, I was a terrible student. But Mrs. Sterling never cared that my grades were awful. In fact, it seemed like the worse I did on exams, the happier she was. She always said, "Luna is becoming more and more like my Lily. She hated studying too." A mother who truly loves her child plans for their future. What kind of mother actively wants her daughter to be a beautiful, useless idiot? Ultimately, she never truly viewed me as her daughter. To her, I was just a living toy to provide her with a little comfort. In this life, I refused to repeat the mistakes of the past. I refused to spend the first half of my life acting as a substitute for a dead girl, and the second half living as a useless caged bird, dying a miserable death. Studying was my only way out. But studying is incredibly difficult when you're starting from the bottom. Realizing that I genuinely couldn't understand a single word in the textbooks, I stood up in frustration. Julian, who had been chatting with someone, noticed my movement. He turned and asked, "Where are you going?" I replied impatiently, "Restroom." In my memory, the girls' restroom in high school always had a massive line between classes. But surprisingly, I didn't see anyone there today. It wasn't until I pushed open the main door that I realized something was wrong. Several girls inside all turned their heads simultaneously to look at me standing in the doorway. The girl closest to me was Chloe. She dropped her cigarette, glanced at the girl they had pinned to the wet floor—who was covered in dirty water—and then walked toward me. She smiled. "Just playing a little joke on her. Just messing around." "You won't tell Julian, right?" Looking at the cigarette butt on the floor, I suddenly realized I never truly knew Chloe at all. Otherwise, how could I not have known that in high school, she smoked and actively bullied her classmates? I thought for a moment and said, "I'm not that close with Julian anyway." "Really?" Chloe asked, though her expression clearly relaxed. "Aren't you living at his house?" I met her gaze. "I'm staying at his house, yes. But we aren't close." Chloe nodded. "Good." With that, she quickly led her group out of the restroom. Once they were gone, I finally looked down at the girl on the floor. I quickly looked away and walked into a stall. When I came out, the girl was standing by the mop sink, her back to me. She was only wearing a camisole. She was rinsing the shirt she had been wearing under the faucet. Hearing the stall door open, she hurriedly wrung out the wet shirt, put it right back on, and kept her head down as she quickly tried to run out. As she passed me, I suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm. The girl looked up at me in confusion, and I looked back at her. After a long, silent moment of eye contact, I finally remembered her name. Mia. I took off my uniform jacket and tossed it to her. "Your shirt is soaking wet. Wear mine." Mia immediately lowered her head again and refused. "No thank you." "Your wet shirt is practically transparent. You can see your undershirt." My words caused Mia's ears to flush a deep, burning red. She awkwardly raised her arms to cover her chest. She hesitated for a long time before finally accepting my jacket. Seeing Mia walk into a stall to change, I secretly breathed a sigh of relief. I'm not usually someone who likes to meddle in other people's business. But in my past life, just a few days after I transferred to this school, Mia jumped off the school roof and died. The school claimed it was due to family issues and the overwhelming pressure of her studies. But looking at her now, the reason for her suicide was clearly much more complicated. It was a young life, after all... "Thank you." Mia, now wearing my jacket, thanked me. "You're welcome" was on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it back down. After a moment of thought, I asked her, "Your grades must be really good, right?" I remembered that before Mia jumped, she was ranked number one in our entire grade. She froze for a second, then nodded. "They're okay." "Mia." I glanced at my jacket she was wearing. "I'll lend you my jacket, and you tutor me." I didn't give her a chance to refuse. I kept talking: "After the upcoming pop quiz, we get to pick new seats based on our rankings. We should sit together so it's easier for you to tutor me." Mia hesitated for a long time before finally agreeing. After school, Julian stubbornly insisted that I ride home in his car with him. But as soon as I got in the car, Chloe stopped him. "Julian, can we talk?" I wasn't interested in their drama, and I certainly didn't want to eavesdrop. But it was quiet around the cars, Chloe was highly emotional, and her voice was very loud. The wind carried their conversation straight into my ears. Chloe asked Julian, "Did you break up with me because of Luna?" "Julian, we've been together for so long. The second Luna shows up, you dump me. I can't think of any other reason." Julian's tone was helpless. "It has nothing to do with anyone else." "Chloe, I just realized that my feelings for you aren't romantic. I've always just seen you as a sister." In an instant, I understood why Chloe had been paying so much attention to me today, constantly turning around to glare at me during class. 06 During dinner, Mrs. Sterling suddenly announced, "Luna, I hired a piano teacher for you today. Starting tomorrow..." She was cut off by Julian before she could finish. "Mom, Luna doesn't like playing the piano. Don't force your own hobbies onto her." Mrs. Sterling offered an awkward smile but didn't argue further. I looked up at Julian, my previous suspicions now fully confirmed. In this life, I had never told Julian that I didn't like playing the piano. The only person who knew I hated the piano was the Julian from my past life. It happened when my illness took a sharp turn for the worse after he threw away my cat. Julian, who mutually despised me, surprisingly dropped all his work and moved back into the villa to take care of me. It happened to coincide with our 19th wedding anniversary. Julian gifted me a custom Steinway piano, flown in from overseas. Even when I told him, "I don't like the piano. The only reason I ever learned was because your mom liked it." Julian simply bought me an extravagant set of jewelry later that same night to make up for it. He had suddenly transformed into a completely different person, treating me with meticulous care and patience. "How do you know Luna doesn't like the piano?" Refusing to give up entirely, Mrs. Sterling asked me again, "Luna, do you want to learn to play?" I pulled myself back to the present and politely declined with a smile. "Mrs. Sterling, I really need to focus on my studies. I honestly don't have the time to learn the piano right now." After dinner, as I was heading back to my room to rest, Julian stopped me. "Luna." "Tomorrow after the quiz, we get to pick our seats based on our rank. Where do you want to sit?" When I didn't answer, Julian continued, "How about the fifth row by the window? Is that okay?" That was exactly the seat I occupied throughout high school in my past life. Julian stared at me intensely, desperately waiting for my response. I gave him a long, hard look before saying dismissively, "Whatever." My brush-off seemed to make Julian incredibly happy. Until the next day. When he watched me walk right past him and take the empty seat next to Mia. "Luna," Julian called out to me in front of the whole class. His lips twitched into a strained smile as he asked, "Did you... take the wrong seat?" "Nope." Julian stood there awkwardly. It took him a long time before he silently sat down elsewhere. "You had the first pick for seats! Why did you choose this one?" I couldn't help but complain to Mia. Mia had picked a terrible seat—dead center, right in the very first row. "I'm nearsighted. If I sit any further back, I can't read the chalkboard." She didn't usually wear glasses. Seeing my skeptical look, Mia openly explained, "I don't have any extra money, so I never got glasses made." "Oh." I pouted. "I thought you were just worried someone would want to sit next to you, so you intentionally picked the worst seat in the class to save it for me." Mia looked up from her test paper and told me with absolute honesty, "You're overthinking it." Regardless of whether I was overthinking it or not. After school, I dragged Mia to an optometrist near the campus and forcefully bought her a pair of prescription glasses. I used the excuse: "If you can't see the board and your grades drop, who's going to tutor me?" "Consider these glasses your tutoring fee." I was using Julian's money anyway. He owed me so much; spending a little of his money was the least he could do. I originally just wanted to get Mia some glasses, but I never expected it to make her cry. When she was being bullied by Chloe and her gang, Mia hadn't shed a single tear. But when I put the glasses on her face, she started sobbing uncontrollably. Mia kept choking out, "Luna, when I have money in the future, I will definitely pay you back." It took forever to calm her down. When I got back to the classroom building, Julian cornered me in the stairwell. He interrogated me: "Why didn't you pick the seat we agreed on?" "Who agreed to anything with you?" I retorted impatiently. "Julian, did I ever make a promise to you?" Julian was instantly silenced. He stared at me for a long time before finally saying, "Luna, why is everything so different?" "Are you also..." I smiled and looked right back at him. "Am I also what?" Unfortunately, Julian didn't answer me. But the fact that he cornered me in the stairwell quickly reached Chloe's ears. After class, Chloe came over specifically to warn me: "Stay away from Julian." Out of concern, Mia also advised me: "Luna, you really should stay away from Julian. Try not to interact with him." To convince me, she proactively brought up the real reason Chloe had been bullying her. "Julian only asked me for help with one math problem, and Chloe immediately accused me of trying to seduce him." "Luna, Chloe is not someone you want to mess with. I'm worried she's going to target you." I would love nothing more than to stay as far away from Julian as possible, but the guy was like a clingy ghost. He would constantly appear right next to me when I least expected it. I let out a silent sigh. I put down my workbook, reached over, and hugged a very worried-looking Mia. "Don't worry." However, Mia's worries quickly came true.
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "391676", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel