I am the true heiress who was switched at birth. On the day I was supposed to reunite with my biological family, my ex-boyfriend was actually there. I gasped in surprise: "Liam?" My biological mother, completely unaware of the gravity of the situation, asked with a bright smile, "Mia, you know Liam?" I blurted out without thinking: "Of course. He's my ex-boyfriend." Seeing the color instantly drain from my biological mother's face, it clicked. My ex-boyfriend was now my biological older brother. And so... The fake heiress, who had been gearing up for an Oscar-worthy performance, froze awkwardly. The youngest brother, who was ready to scream "I only acknowledge my old sister," lost his voice. My biological father suffered a massive asthma attack on the spot, leaving my biological mother scrambling to feed him his inhaler. Then there was me, completely petrified. And my expressionless ex-boyfriend-turned-biological-brother. 1 "Mom, Dad, are they into some twisted sibling romance?" The first to react was the fake heiress, Serena. She pointed at me and Liam, her eyes wide, her lips parted in shock. After a few seconds of silence, I raised my hand and pointed at Liam. "He seduced me first." Liam's eyes darkened, staring fixedly at me. One second, two seconds... I suddenly burst into loud laughter. "Just a joke to lighten the mood!" "Mom, Dad, honestly, before I walked through that door, I didn't know my 'big brother' at all, haha." Liam smiled too. The corners of his lips slowly curled up as he looked at the dumbfounded Serena and the little brother. Then he looked at our parents, who had just caught their breath. "Isn't it funny? Why aren't you laughing?" After two seconds of silence, the youngest brother, Leo, who was still in high school, was the first to laugh out loud. "Hahaha, that joke was hilarious! I almost believed it." "Dad, Mom, Serena, why aren't you laughing?" He didn't notice the look his parents and Serena were giving him—like they were looking at an idiot. The atmosphere instantly cooled down again. Once again, I regretted running my mouth the moment I walked in and saw a familiar face, purely out of surprise. "Let's eat first," Mr. Sterling said, breaking the awkward silence. Mrs. Sterling also recovered, affectionately taking my hand and leading me toward the dining room. "Mia, we weren't sure about your tastes yet, so we had the chef prepare a little bit of everything." She pulled me to sit between her and Mr. Sterling. "Mia, try this." Mrs. Sterling picked up a piece of shrimp and was about to put it in my bowl. Liam looked over and frowned slightly. "Mom, Mia can't eat shrimp. She's allergic to seafood." 2 The lobster dropped from her chopsticks onto the table. Mrs. Sterling stared blankly at Liam, the tremor in her voice incredibly obvious. "Liam, how do you know your sister is allergic to seafood?" My gaze collided violently with Liam's, then quickly darted away. My scalp tingled. Fortunately, my brain worked fast, and I quickly came up with an explanation. "Mom, Liam and I both went to Ivy University, and we were in the same club before." "During a club dinner, I mentioned my seafood allergy. Liam has a good memory, he must have remembered it from then." Actually, no. It was because of Liam that I found out I was allergic to seafood. Before I met him, I had never eaten seafood. The moment I swallowed the first bite of shrimp, my heart started racing wildly, my chest tightened, and my cheeks flushed hot. I thought it was the thrill and excitement of being confessed to by love at first sight. It felt like my heart was skipping a beat. But the moment Liam finished his confession... Before I could even say "I like you too," I was suffocated by my increasingly rapid heartbeat, my vision went black, and I passed out. When I woke up in the hospital, I had been on an IV drip for three days. "Is what your sister said true, Liam?" Mrs. Sterling was half-skeptical, her hand unconsciously tightening around her chopsticks. Liam's expression didn't show a single ripple. "Yeah. What she said is true." 3 For the rest of the dinner. Besides Liam and me, the other three had complex expressions, glancing at each other from time to time. After dinner, Mrs. Sterling took my hand and led me upstairs. "Mia, before you came back, Mom prepared a few rooms for you. Take a look, which one do you like?" I didn't have many demands for a room; as long as it had a bed that could fit me, it was fine. But after looking at several rooms decorated in a sickeningly sweet pink, I realized I did have demands. So, when passing by a room with a minimalist design, I stopped. "I'll take this one." "No!" Mr. and Mrs. Sterling rejected me in unison. I was confused. "Why not?" They exchanged a conflicted look. "This room is too small." "This room isn't suitable for you." It was Serena, eager to stir up drama, who explained: "Sister, the room directly across from this one is Liam's bedroom." I looked at Mrs. Sterling, and she guiltily avoided my gaze. I was understanding and smiled, "Then I'll pick another one." Finally, I chose a room that was quite out of the way. Of all the empty rooms, it was the furthest from Liam's. The two rooms weren't even on the same floor. One was on the second floor, the other on the fourth. Unless Liam was sleepwalking or specifically looking for me, he wouldn't pass by my bedroom. "I'm heading out," Liam, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly spoke up. I watched him walk toward me, then expressionlessly bypass me. "There's a problem with a project that needs urgent handling. I won't be coming back tonight." 4 After drying my hair, I prepared for bed. There was a sudden knock on my bedroom door. The person outside didn't speak, so I was sure it wasn't Mr. or Mrs. Sterling. I didn't want to answer, but the knocking grew louder. I frowned, got up, and opened the door. Standing outside was indeed Leo. His tone was aggressive. "I knocked for ages! Why did it take you so long to open the door?" Ever since I walked in, this kid hadn't given me a single good look. Naturally, I had no patience for him either. "Knocking on my door in the middle of the night. What do you want?" Leo lifted his chin, his face full of disdain. "Let me make this clear right now. I only have one sister, and that's Serena." "Don't delude yourself into thinking I'll ever acknowledge you as my sister." Provoking me right to my face? How dare he be so arrogant. My patience completely ran out. I raised my hand. Slap. A firm slap landed on Leo's face. I sneered, staring straight at him. "Two choices. Either I'm your sister, or I'm your sister-in-law. Pick one." Leo held his cheek, his eyes full of absolute disbelief at my slap. He froze for four or five seconds before my words finally registered in his brain. His expression instantly crumbled. "Wh-what do you mean? Are you and my brother really..." I raised my hand, pretending I was going to slap him again. Leo panicked and shrank back two steps in fear. Recovering, his mouth twitched slightly, his eyes a mix of panic and grievance. After holding it in for a long time, he gritted his teeth and squeezed out one word: "Sister." I was satisfied with Leo's tactfulness. "Good. That's a good boy." "Little brother, go back to sleep." Leo turned to leave, but after taking four or five steps, he abruptly turned back. I raised an eyebrow. He stared at me intensely, his voice low and heavy. "You and my brother are biological siblings." "Biological! Don't do anything crazy." It wasn't until I heard the sound of Leo's door closing downstairs that I looked up toward the corner of the hallway. "Big brother, didn't you say you weren't coming back tonight?" 5 Liam walked out from the corner. Those familiar eyes were completely shrouded by the shadow of his brow bone, making it impossible to read his emotions. He kept his gaze low, casually loosening the tie at his neck. "Handled it early." "Haven't seen you in two years, so I came up to say hello." His tone was very flat. As he approached, a faint scent of alcohol drifted over. I asked him, "Are you drunk?" He denied it quickly: "No." A moment of silence. My brain inappropriately started churning out random thoughts. I vaguely remembered a phrase that perfectly suited our current atmosphere. It was something like— Lovers destined to become siblings. Realizing I was laughing internally, I quickly collected myself and played along with his previous words. "It really has been two years." After we broke up, I unilaterally cut all contact with him. Calculating it, it had been exactly two years, one month, and nineteen days. During the pause in our conversation, I instinctively studied him. Liam noticed my gaze and subtly straightened his posture. I looked at him very seriously. Compared to two years ago, Liam was much more mature. Somewhere between the bright clarity of a youth and the steady maturity of a man, he was even more dazzling. He truly lived up to being the man I fell in love with at first sight two years ago. Compared to when we first met, there were even more things about him that made my heart race. Thinking this, the dirty thoughts in my brain unconsciously kicked my rationality to the curb. My unfiltered mouth blurted out, "I feel like you've gotten even sexier." "Cough, cough." Realizing what I had just said, I almost choked on my own saliva. At the same time, my rationality returned, and I quickly backed away to distance myself from Liam. I lost my mind. My current identity is his biological sister! Fire prevention, theft prevention, incest prevention. "Stop!" I rejected his movement to approach me. "We've said our hellos. You can go back to your room now." His eyes darkened considerably. "You're the one who provoked me." I was very candid. "That's because I forgot my identity for a second." "Liam, I am now just your sister." "If there's nothing else, let's call it a night." Today, Mr. Sterling had an asthma attack right on the spot from the shock of hearing that Liam and I used to date. My mind went blank at the time, and the fear only set in afterward. Older people can't handle too much shock. If he found out that in the middle of the night, Liam and I were secretly talking behind everyone's backs, his body probably wouldn't be able to take it. "Give me a strand of your hair." I didn't hear him clearly and frowned. "What did you say?" "Give me..." "Liam, Mia, what are you doing?" Mrs. Sterling's horrified voice suddenly rang out. I turned to look. She was standing at the top of the stairs, looking at us with a pale face. "Mom, what are you doing here?" Liam asked calmly. "I-I got thirsty and came out for some water." "But it's almost midnight. Liam, if you have something to say to your biological sister, couldn't it wait until tomorrow? Why in the middle of the night?" I don't know if it was just my imagination, but I felt like Mrs. Sterling emphasized the words "biological sister" very heavily. But didn't Mrs. Sterling have a mini-fridge or a water dispenser in her bedroom? My bedroom had a double-door fridge stocked with ridiculously expensive bottled water. Besides, Mrs. Sterling's bedroom was on the second floor. Why would she come to the fourth floor for water? Liam lowered his eyes slightly and didn't answer immediately. After a moment of silence, he explained in a natural tone. "I had a few drinks at the dinner meeting, and felt thirsty when I got back. I don't know how, but I wandered up to the fourth floor." "I saw Mia standing at her door, so I came over to say goodnight." 6 The next day, I had classes in the morning. The Sterling family's driver dropped me off near the university. I told him not to pick me up at noon. After my two classes ended, I returned to the apartment I had rented a little over a month ago for my internship. I pushed the door open. The person on the bed was sprawled out, sleeping soundly. I dragged the person out from under the covers. "Chloe, it's 1 PM! Wake up!" "I went to see your family yesterday." Chloe was dazed and groggy for a moment. When she fully woke up, she quickly sat up and shook my arm. "Yesterday? Wasn't the meeting scheduled for the 13th? Why did you go early?!" I said exasperatedly: "I told you to stop staying up late. You've fried your brain." "Yesterday was the 13th." Chloe and I grew up in the same orphanage. The difference was, she had been there since she was a baby. All the children in the orphanage took the director's surname, "Su". The day she arrived, the director's jasmine flowers (Mo-li) were in full bloom, so she was named Su Mo (Chloe). As for me, Mia, I entered the orphanage when I was six, after both my parents died in a car accident. Because our names sounded similar and we were the same age, Chloe and I had stuck together since childhood, becoming each other's closest family. However, our personalities were complete opposites. A week ago, the orphanage director told Chloe that her biological parents had been found. After hearing the good news, she hugged me and jumped around for ages, her eyes sparkling. "Mia, I have a mom and dad!" But when she found out her parents were the owners of a famous national enterprise... And that there was a fake heiress who had taken her place and lived the high life in the Sterling family for over twenty years, Chloe instantly deflated. Because she had been abducted by human traffickers when she was little, she suffered from severe paranoia. Chloe firmly believed that if she returned to the Sterling family, the fake heiress would definitely harm her. That night, she curled up in bed, flipping through various "true vs. fake heiress" novels while wailing: "It's over, it's over. Mia, I know this plotline." "Classic true vs. fake heiress trope. If I, the true heiress, go back, I'll definitely get bullied." Ever since she escaped from the human traffickers, Chloe could only communicate freely and comfortably in front of me and the director. The moment she faced strangers, she would stutter and even have trouble breathing. With a personality like that, people easily thought she was a pushover. "Look at these novels. The fake heiress plays weak to get sympathy, and the family loses their minds and favors her completely." "A true heiress like me will either get framed or kicked out of the house. Either way, the ending is extremely tragic." The more Chloe spoke, the angrier she got, flipping the novel on her lap furiously. But her eyes hid a very real, genuine panic. Finally, she made up her mind. "Just in case, I'm not going to reunite with them." "According to the plot developments in these novels, if I return to the Sterling family, my future will be miserable, and I might even drag you down with me." But I couldn't forget the joy she showed when she learned she still had family. So, I took on Chloe's identity and entered the Sterling family to investigate the situation. To see if the fake heiress felt ashamed towards Chloe and harbored good intentions? To see if the Sterling family would completely favor the fake heiress like in the novels? To see if the members of the Sterling family were all profit-driven, ruthless people who only thought about fighting for power and wealth every second? Currently, aside from Serena and Leo, the other three had a pretty good impression score in my heart. But right now, that wasn't the main point. Before Chloe could ask about my experience at the Sterling house yesterday, I took a deep breath. "We need to tell your parents the truth earlier than planned." Chloe's eyes widened slightly. "Why?" "Because if we don't switch back soon, your oldest brother is going to be forced to move abroad."
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