I didn't speak a single word until I was eight years old. Everyone in the Sterling family called me a retard. Even my own mother would cry in secret, convinced she had given birth to a severely autistic daughter. My father looked at me with eyes full of utter disappointment. Yet, bound by the crushing weight of his pride and social standing, he never sent me to a special needs school. Then came the day the corporate raiders from Wall Street arrived to acquire our family's empire, Sterling Enterprises. They were so arrogant they verbally decimated the entire boardroom. A room packed with top-tier executives sat in dead silence like frightened cicadas, not a single one daring to speak up. I stood in the corner, listening until I was practically falling asleep. I was annoyed. I took one step forward. And spoke my very first sentence in this lifetime. 1 My name is Seraphina Sterling. The eldest granddaughter of the main branch of the Sterling family, and the sole direct heir to the empire. This was a life that should have been defined by a silver spoon. But I was eight years old, and I still hadn't spoken a single word. Everyone from the top to the bottom of the Sterling family knew the truth: the eldest young miss was an idiot. My mother came from a highly educated, aristocratic family in Boston. Gentle and refined, she poured absolutely all her love into me. She would hold me, teaching me over and over again. "Sera, say it with Mommy... Ma... ma..." I would just look at her, silent and motionless. The light in her eyes would slowly dim, inch by inch. Then she would turn around and covertly wipe the corners of her eyes with a tissue. She thought I couldn't see. But I knew everything. It wasn't that I couldn't speak. I just didn't want to. Because I came into this world carrying the memories of my past life. In my previous life, I was a fast-talking, relentlessly grinding financial analyst on Wall Street. I spent thirty years talking non-stop, and I was exhausted to my core. In this life, I just wanted to be a quiet, useless trust-fund baby and enjoy the ride. But I underestimated the immense weight of the title "Eldest Granddaughter of the Sterling Family." It wasn't just wealth; it was a shackle. My father, the Chairman and CEO of Sterling Enterprises, was a ruthless, decisive businessman. Every time he looked at me, there was a glimmer of desperate hope. "Sera, do you know what this is?" He would point to the numbers on a financial statement. I would nod. "Can you tell Daddy what our net profit is for this quarter?" I would reach out my little hand and accurately point to the exact figure. The hope in his eyes would flare brighter. And then, he would ask the question he wanted the answer to more than anything else in the world. "Sera, can you just call me Daddy? Just once?" I would look at him, maintaining my silence. The light in his eyes would instantly extinguish, like a raging fire doused in ice water. Leaving behind only disappointment. A disappointment so thick you could cut it with a knife. He would sit in silence for a long time, then stand up and storm out of the room. "Sigh." That sigh was so heavy it felt like it could shatter the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the entire executive floor. I knew perfectly well that if I wasn't the only direct granddaughter, and if my mother's family wasn't incredibly powerful in their own right, my position as the heir would have been revoked years ago. The looks my cousins gave me had also morphed from their initial wariness into undisguised mockery. "Big Sister, did you understand anything they taught in tutoring today?" The one speaking was my Uncle Robert's daughter, Victoria Sterling. She was only a year younger than me, but she was articulate, sharp-tongued, and deeply favored by my father. I gave her a sideways glance, too lazy to acknowledge her. That only made her smile wider. "Oh, I forgot. Big Sister is a born genius! She knows everything right out of the womb. Unlike us mere mortals who actually have to study hard." "Victoria, don't say that." My Uncle Thomas's daughter, Chloe Sterling, chimed in with fake, sickening sweetness. "Big Sister just thinks it's beneath her to speak to us. It's called being a late bloomer, understand?" They sang their little duet perfectly in sync. The nannies and maids standing around kept their heads down, but their shoulders were shaking slightly. They were laughing. Laughing at me, the mute idiot. I walked past them, my face entirely devoid of emotion. It was like watching two grasshoppers jumping up and down in front of me. Boring. And childish. My mother saw all of this and it broke her heart. That night, she held me again, her tears soaking my shoulder. "My sweet Sera, why won't you speak?" "Even if it's just one word. Just one word, and Mommy could die happy." I could feel her body trembling. It was the absolute despair of a mother. My heart wasn't made of iron. In that moment, my resolve wavered slightly. Maybe... maybe I should finally speak. Just as I was preparing to open my mouth and attempt to force out a rusty, unfamiliar syllable... Frantic footsteps echoed outside the study. Our head butler, Mr. Henderson, practically tumbled into the room, gasping for air. "Ma'am, it's a disaster!" "The people from New York are here!" "That Wall Street predator... Charles King... he's already at the corporate headquarters!" All the color drained from my mother's face. Charles King. That name was a dark, looming storm cloud over Sterling Enterprises. He was the most vicious vulture on Wall Street, specializing in shorting and dismantling legacy Asian-American family conglomerates. In recent years, he had already devoured three companies the same size as Sterling. "What is he doing here?" my mother asked. Mr. Henderson's voice was shaking violently. "He... he says he's here to negotiate a buyout. He was incredibly disrespectful! He said he's here to help Sterling 'exit the stage of history with some dignity'!" My mother stumbled, grabbing the edge of the desk for support. "Negotiating a buyout" was just a polite corporate euphemism for a hostile takeover. A massive, devastating hurricane was about to make landfall. I looked up at the gray, overcast sky outside the window. It seemed my days of quietly playing the useless idiot were officially over. Oh well. There are always some blind, annoying flies who insist on forcing a sleeping lion... no, a sleeping lioness, to open her eyes. 2 My father called an emergency meeting on the top floor of the corporate headquarters, summoning all family members and core executives. I was dragged along too, standing in the corner. It was family tradition: the eldest grandchild must be present for major family events. Usually, I would just find a corner, stand there all morning, and zone out completely. But today, the atmosphere was different. The entire boardroom was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Every single person's face was a sickly, humiliating shade of iron-gray. My father sat at the head of the table, his face so dark it looked like a thunderstorm. Standing directly across from him was a tall, middle-aged man in a bespoke suit. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses were eyes as sharp and predatory as a falcon's. This was Charles King. He had an Asian face, but he was a crocodile raised in the bloody waters of Wall Street. "Mr. Sterling, is this the famed Sterling hospitality?" Charles spoke up. He used fluent English, but his tone was dripping with condescension. "I flew fourteen hours from New York just to look at this?" He pointed a long, manicured finger at the trembling executives in the room. "A bunch of pathetic nerds who only know how to look at financial data!" "I talk to you about capital, and you talk to me about sentiment." "I talk to you about market dynamics, and you talk to me about your 'century-old legacy'." "It's laughable!" "Absolutely pathetic and laughable!" He burst into arrogant, booming laughter. The sound echoed through the solemn boardroom, incredibly grating to the ears. "Mr. King!" The CFO, trembling with rage, slammed his hands on the table and stood up. "This is the Board of Directors for Sterling Enterprises! We will not tolerate your disrespect!" Charles shot him a sideways glance, his face full of utter disdain. "Old Wu, I know who you are." "You're the one who was lecturing me yesterday about how 'family businesses have a soul'." "Let me tell you something. Our rule on Wall Street is simple: the only 'soul' a business without profit has is the soul of a graveyard!" "Only the weak need to use sentiment to cover up their sheer incompetence!" The CFO's face flushed a violent, dark purple. He pointed a trembling finger at Charles, stuttering "You... you..." for several seconds before gasping for air and collapsing backward, stiff as a board. "Mr. Wu!" The people next to him frantically scrambled to catch him. Chaos erupted in the boardroom. My father slammed his hand on the table and roared, "Enough!" Charles finally dialed it back a fraction, but the contempt on his face didn't fade in the slightest. He gave a mocking, half-hearted shrug toward my father. "Mr. Sterling, I won't waste any more of your time." "The investment committee at my hedge fund has already made the call. Sterling's stock price won't survive the next fiscal year." "If you sell right now, you can still walk away with $300 million." "If you wait for us to initiate our short-selling campaign... by the time we're done, you'll be lucky to walk away with $100 million." "Furthermore, we have our eyes on that massive plot of land Sterling owns in the South District. We plan to develop it into ultra-luxury real estate." "And I hear your R&D tech team is quite capable. We intend to poach the entire division..." Before he could even finish his sentence. The entire boardroom exploded. Slashing the buyout price, stealing their prime real estate, and poaching their core tech team! Was this a buyout negotiation? This was the blatant, brutal dismemberment of Sterling Enterprises! "This is extortion!" "Get the hell out of here, you Wall Street parasite!" "Robert, we'll fight him to the death!" On my Uncle Robert's side of the table, several hot-tempered shareholders couldn't hold back anymore. Charles let out a cold, cynical sneer. "Fight me?" "Be my guest." He locked eyes with Uncle Robert, the leader of the opposition. "I know you. You're the second Sterling brother, right? Three years ago, you spearheaded that commercial real estate project. How much money did you lose? Twenty million? Or was it thirty million?" Uncle Robert's face instantly flushed crimson, looking like he had just been slapped across the face. The veins on his clenched fists popped, but he couldn't utter a single word. Charles turned his gaze to another executive. "And you, you're the Chief Marketing Officer? Last Black Friday, how much did you burn on marketing? And what was your actual conversion rate? Did that pathetic bump in sales even cover the cost of the ad spots?" The CMO lowered his head, his face burning with shame. Charles swept his gaze across the room. Every single person who had been screaming for a fight instantly deflated. The boardroom fell into a deathly silence once again. A humiliating, powerless silence. I stood in the corner, watching it all unfold. These were the elites of Sterling Enterprises. The CFO was out-argued, the CMO had his deepest failures exposed. A room full of seasoned executives, completely subjugated and humiliated by a single Wall Street vulture, unable to even lift their heads. I felt a little sleepy. Honestly. This scene was even more pathetic than I had anticipated. It was like watching a group of grown men get cornered in an alley by a street thug, getting slapped in the face one by one, yet not a single one daring to fight back. My father's chest was heaving violently. I knew he was on the absolute brink of exploding. But he couldn't. Because everything Charles said was the brutal, undeniable truth. Sterling's profits were indeed in a steep decline. This was the tragedy of the weak. Charles was immensely satisfied with the effect he had created. He cleared his throat, preparing to lay out even more outrageous demands. "Since no one has any objections, I'll take that as a unanimous agreement." "Our fund also requires..." His incessant, droning voice was like an annoying fly buzzing right next to my ear. I originally just wanted to be a quiet spectator. But this fly was just too damn loud. I was annoyed. I was genuinely annoyed. In this dead-silent boardroom, everyone was looking down. Nobody noticed me in the corner. I moved. I took a step forward. Just one step. From the shadows of the corner, directly into the light. Chapter 2 3 My single step was very light. But in the dead-silent boardroom, it echoed like a crack of thunder. Every single person's gaze was instinctively drawn toward me. They saw me. An eight-year-old girl, dressed in a custom-tailored dress, looking like a porcelain doll. Their eyes were blank at first, then morphed into shock. Seraphina Sterling? The idiot? What is she doing? My mother, sitting next to my father, also saw me. Her eyes filled with panic and worry. She reached her hand out, as if wanting to call me back, but didn't dare make a sound. My father furrowed his brow, his eyes filled with confusion and a trace of displeasure. My cousins, Victoria and Chloe, exchanged a look of pure schadenfreude. Their expressions practically screamed: Is this idiot really going to embarrass herself in front of everyone? Charles noticed me too. He looked down at me from his towering height, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across his face. "Oh? Whose kid is this?" "Is Sterling really out of options? You're sending a child to the front lines?" He deliberately raised his voice. "Little girl, are you going to talk to me about 'sentiment' too?" "Or is your daddy planning to offer you to me as my goddaughter to sweeten the deal?" He laughed arrogantly. The shareholders let out suppressed gasps, their faces twisted in humiliation and rage. Insulting a child was insulting the entire family line. Yet, still, not a single one of them dared to speak up and defend me. I ignored everyone else. My eyes were locked solely on Charles, who was currently parading around like a clown. I looked at him, and then, I opened my mouth. And I spoke my very first sentence since arriving in this world. I spoke in English. Rapid-fire, impeccably pronounced, elite Wall Street-accented English. "Are you finished?" My voice was young and childish, but my articulation was razor-sharp, my tone freezing cold, completely devoid of any emotion. The entire boardroom instantly plunged into a silence far more bizarre and terrifying than before. Everyone froze. Because they understood me. Every single person in that room understood English. The idiot spoke. And she spoke fluent, flawless English. The smile on Charles's face instantly solidified. His sharp, predatory eyes filled with an unimaginable, impossible shock. It was as if he had just seen a ghost in broad daylight. He stared at me, his mouth opening and closing, a strange gargling sound coming from his throat, as if an invisible hand was choking him. "You..." He forced a single English word out with extreme difficulty. I looked at him expressionlessly. And continued in his native tongue. "If you're finished, get the fuck out." Those words hit Charles's chest like a sledgehammer. His body swayed violently. The blood instantly drained from his face, leaving him as white as a sheet. If my first sentence caused shock. My second sentence caused fear. A bone-deep, primal fear originating from the very depths of his soul. Because "If you're finished, get the fuck out" wasn't just a generic insult in Wall Street circles. Thirty years ago, when the legendary George Soros successfully shorted the British Pound and broke the Bank of England, those were the exact final words he said to his defeated opponent. It was a legend. A myth. It was a piece of Wall Street lore known only to the absolute top-tier financial titans! The way he looked at me—an eight-year-old girl—had completely changed. He was no longer looking at an idiot. He was looking at a... monster wearing human skin. "Who... who the hell are you?" He asked, his voice trembling violently, still speaking English. Everyone else in the boardroom was absolutely dumbfounded. They understood every single word that was spoken, but they couldn't comprehend the scene unfolding before their eyes. The ruthless Wall Street wolf who, just seconds ago, was trampling a room full of elite executives under his feet... was now trembling like a terrified rabbit in front of an eight-year-old girl. What... what was happening? My father shot up from his chair, his eyes wide, staring at me with a mix of shock, ecstasy, and endless confusion. My mother covered her mouth tightly with her hands, tears streaming down her face, but she didn't dare make a sound. I didn't answer Charles's question. I just continued speaking calmly in English. "This 'hedge fund' you're parading around is nothing but a marginalized spin-off team from Goldman Sachs. The real heavy hitters pulled their capital ages ago. The money you're managing now is just scraps from tier-two pension funds." "Three years ago, when you shorted that Southeast Asian tech firm, you didn't do it based on 'precise market analysis.' You preemptively bribed their CFO and acquired their internal financial reports illegally." "Last year, when you acquired that biotech startup, your so-called 'valuation model' was just a copy-pasted McKinsey template from five years ago. You got scammed out of $30 million, and you were actually proud of yourselves. Right?" "Furthermore." I smiled slightly. To Charles, that smile must have looked more terrifying than the devil himself. "Your mandate for acquiring Sterling Enterprises today has a hard floor of $200 million. If Sterling plays hardball, your committee authorized you to accept $250 million." "Because your own fund's cash flow is dangerously tight. If you don't close a deal right now, you won't even be able to pay out end-of-year bonuses." "You don't even have the actual capital required to swallow Sterling whole. You just desperately need to close one flashy deal before the annual review to appease your investors." "Am I right, or am I right?" I finished speaking and looked at him quietly. Thud! Charles couldn't hold himself up any longer. His legs gave out, and he dropped straight to his knees right in front of the entire boardroom. He leaned forward, his hands bracing against the floor, cold sweat pouring down his forehead, his voice choked with terror. "Oh my God... Oh my God..." The entire room was dead silent. Everyone was completely paralyzed by the surreal, magical scene unfolding before them. I stopped looking at him. Instead, I turned to look at my father, who was standing at the head of the table, equally dumbfounded. I switched from English back to standard, flawless English. My voice was still young, but crystal clear. "Dad." "I have something to say."
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