1 I know every trope from trashy webnovels by heart, so ever since being reborn into this world, I’ve braced for plot twists at every turn. I carefully cultivated the persona of someone with crippling paranoia. Delicate and fragile, I turned the Sinclair mansion into a fortress. I padded every sharp corner, triple-tracked my phone, and pinned a GoPro to my chest, recording 24/7. Even my parents ached for me, saying I needed to be showered with love. Years ago, a kidnapper staked me out for months but never found an opening. In desperation, he tried brute force—only to slam into an invisible security fence. He was caught on the spot. And so, I grew up safely, wrapped in my parents’ love. Until today, when a girl showed up clutching a DNA report. Tearfully, she introduced herself as Claire Sinclair, the real Sinclair daughter. “Sister, I’m not here to take anything from you,” she said, eyes red. “I just… want a complete family.” With that, she grabbed my hand and threw herself dramatically toward a porcelain vase in the corner. Thud. Claire bounced off it and landed flat on her back. The smirk forming on her lips froze solid. A second later, she shrieked, “Are you insane?! Who makes a vase out of solid rubber?!” … Claire lay sprawled on the floor, prodding the unmoving blue-and-white porcelain vase in disbelief. “Why won’t this thing break?” “Oh, it’s rubber. Solid rubber,” I explained in a small voice, peeking out from behind my mother. “Claire, are you okay? The floor is cold, you should get up.” My father rushed over to help her up, while my mother knelt beside her, her face etched with concern. “Did you hurt yourself anywhere?” Claire sat up, rubbing her tailbone in stunned silence, her face a shifting palette of white and red. My parents exchanged a look, their eyes filled with a familiar mix of worry and exasperation over my "condition." “Claire, please don’t mind her,” Mom explained softly, patting her on the back. “Ava… she’s had a phobia of fragile things since she was a little girl. So we had all the porcelain and glass in the house replaced with this custom-made polymer.” The butler helped a limping Claire to her feet. The tear tracks on her cheeks were half-dry, her expression a chaotic mess of disbelief and a new, calculating curiosity. I approached her, feigning concern, and gently brushed the dust from her dress. “Are you hurt, Claire? Should we call the family doctor?” “It’s all my fault. If I weren’t so timid, we wouldn’t have all these strange things in the house.” As I spoke, my own eyes began to redden, tears welling up. My parents’ hearts immediately went out to me. Dad sighed and turned to Claire. “Claire, let the butler show you to your room to rest. I’ll have the doctor check on you later. You’ll have to be more careful around the house from now on.” Claire’s expression darkened even further. Back in her room, she was clearly not ready to give up. A little while later, she appeared timidly at the door to the living room. Her eyes immediately locked onto a celadon teacup on the mantelpiece—one of the few objects in the house that looked genuinely old and valuable. “Sister, that cup is so beautiful.” Her eyes glinted with calculation. I nodded. “It was my grandmother’s.” Claire’s eyes instantly filled with tears. “My… my grandmother, who I never got to meet?” Her voice dripped with a mix of longing and feigned humility. “I never had nice things growing up. That cup must be very expensive, right? Could I… could I just hold it for a moment?” This one-two punch of pitiable vulnerability was too much for my parents. Guilt was written all over Mom’s face. “Ava, just let your sister look at it. She misses her grandmother, too.” I hesitated for a moment before giving a reluctant nod. Claire walked over, picked up the cup with exaggerated care, and as she turned, shot me a triumphant, mocking smirk from an angle our parents couldn't see. The next second, her foot “slipped,” and she lofted the teacup high into the air. “Oh no!” The cup sailed through the air, heading straight for the marble floor. Claire had already composed her face into an expression of tearful apology. Thump… boing… boing… The expected crisp shatter never came. The celadon teacup hit the floor, and instead of breaking, it bounced like a rubber ball several times before rolling to a stop at my father’s feet. Completely unharmed. The room was utterly silent. I could practically see the blood rushing to Claire’s face, turning it from white to red, then to a deep shade of purple. The cringe was palpable. It was so awkward you could have built a three-bedroom apartment out of the secondhand embarrassment. My father was the first to break the silence. He cleared his throat, a note of relief in his voice. “Well, thank goodness for that. It’s a good thing Ava insisted we replace everything with this reinforced polymer.” “Her grandmother adored her, so she had this specially commissioned. It’s indestructible.” “Otherwise, that precious memento would have been lost today.” Mom quickly jumped in to smooth things over. “Yes, exactly. Don’t worry about it, Claire. No harm done.” Claire just stood there, looking like she wanted the floor to swallow her whole. I walked over, picked up the cup, and blew off a speck of non-existent dust. Then, I went to my room, retrieved an identical teacup, and pressed it into her hand. “Don’t be sad, Claire. Whatever I have, you’ll have too.” I gave her a beatific, innocent smile. “Good thing I had the foresight to ask Grandma for two of them.” “Here. This one’s brand new. A gift. You’re welcome.” Claire clutched the indestructible cup, her knuckles white. She quickly recovered, forcing a stiff smile. “Thank you, sister… I see I’ll have to be very, very careful in this house.” After two consecutive failures, Claire lay low for a couple of days. I figured she was revising her strategy. Soon enough, she set her sights on my older brother, Leo, a man whose only true love is academia. He was the family’s resident iceberg, perpetually buried in labs and libraries, with a near-total immunity to human emotional cues. Claire adopted the “gentle, understanding soulmate” approach. She timed his schedule perfectly, bringing him handmade pastries and soups every day. When he inevitably shut the door in her face, she remained undeterred, showing up again the next day. She would also casually “showcase” her intellect in front of him, reciting obscure poetry or dropping philosophical tidbits, all in a desperate attempt to catch his interest. Unfortunately for her, trying to connect with my brother emotionally was like talking to a brick wall made of textbooks. Seeing her charm offensive was failing, Claire finally bared her fangs. That evening, she rushed up to me in a panic, grabbing my wrist, her eyes gleaming with a manic energy. “Sister, quickly! I think that stray cat in the back garden is hurt! It’s bleeding everywhere! We have to go help it!” Her voice was shrill, laced with a contrived urgency. Just what kind of diversion was this? I let her drag me out to the back garden. It was completely quiet. Not a single cat hair in sight. Before I could say anything, Claire clutched her stomach and gasped, “Oh, ouch! My stomach suddenly hurts so much. I need to find a bathroom, quick.” Her winks and grimaces were laughably amateurish. I nodded, playing my part. “Of course, you should go. I’ll look for the cat out here.” She looked relieved, turning and bolting without another word of pretense. I watched her go, then began a leisurely stroll through the garden, even taking the time to water a few of the orchids. When I finally wandered back inside, I was met with the sound of my brother’s furious roar. “Which one of you bastards destroyed my manuscript? It took me three days and nights to finish it!” Leo stormed out of his study, his face flushed with rage, his hair standing on end. It was the first time I’d ever seen him so furious. Even my parents came running. We followed him into his study to find a scene of utter devastation. His freshly completed thesis was torn to shreds, and ink was splattered everywhere. Claire covered her mouth, her face a mask of horror. “How could this have happened?” She timidly tugged on our mother’s sleeve and whispered, “I… I think I saw sister walking past brother’s study door just a little while ago…” My father’s expression hardened. My mother frowned, her gaze turning to me, searching for an explanation. “Claire, are you certain it was your sister you saw?” Claire continued her performance. “Mom, please don’t ask. It’s all my fault…” My parents immediately pulled up the security footage from the hallway. On the screen, a figure in a white dress—my signature look—was seen furtively entering my brother’s study, then rushing out a few moments later. Claire immediately burst into tears, the waterworks on full display. “It’s all my fault. If I’d never come back, none of this would be happening…” “Sister must be in a bad mood because of me. That’s why she did this, isn’t it?” She was doing everything she could to pin the blame on me. “Shut up!”
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