The daughter I raised for sixteen years wasn't my biological child. The nanny's daughter had been spoiled like a little princess in our home, while my own flesh and blood suffered out in the country. After bringing my real daughter back, I insisted on sending the adopted daughter away. But my husband and son absolutely refused. My husband claimed the adopted daughter was poised and well-mannered, perfect for keeping up appearances in our social circle. My son complained that his biological sister was a tacky, uncultured hillbilly who would embarrass him in public. Watching the light fade from my real daughter's eyes, I took her hand. "Then let's get a divorce. I'll raise my daughter on my own." 01 "Is this the only reason you want to divorce me?" William stared at me in disbelief. "Victoria, have you lost your mind?" I shook my head. "I am perfectly serious. We are getting a divorce." Our twelve-year-old son, Oliver, was completely stunned. When he finally found his voice, he looked at me with a mixture of shock and betrayal. "Mom, you're leaving Dad, leaving my sister, and leaving me... all because of that country bumpkin?!" "Oliver Hawthorne!" I glanced anxiously toward the staircase, my brow furrowing in a stern reprimand. "Watch your mouth! That is your biological sister!" "I will never accept her as my sister!" Oliver's face flushed bright red, his voice rising in anger. "She's just an unpresentable hillbilly!" "She's tacky, she's uncultured, she has a rotten heart, and now she's manipulating you into divorcing Dad!" "I hate her! I only have one sister, and that's Isabella!" He bolted out the door in tears. William immediately called for the staff to chase after him, then turned to me with an accusing glare. "Are you happy now that you've caused this kind of scene?" "Can't the two girls just coexist? Why do you insist on sending Isabella back? It's not like our family can't afford to raise her. She is your daughter too!" "I can no longer look at her as my daughter." A wave of fury washed over me, followed quickly by an overwhelming, uncontrollable sorrow. "Did you not read Audrey's medical reports? Do you have any idea how agonizing her life has been in that house?" "For the past sixteen years, we gave Isabella a life of absolute privilege, happiness, and joy. Meanwhile, our biological daughter was abused by her adoptive family for sixteen long years." "After seeing the scars on Audrey's body, I can never look at Isabella the same way again." William's face darkened, his frustration palpable. "Then we'll just compensate Audrey moving forward! Isn't that enough?" "The mistake was made by her biological parents! It has nothing to do with Isabella. She is innocent in all of this!" "Was all your love and affection for Isabella over the years fake?" My voice caught in my throat. "My love for Isabella over the past sixteen years was entirely predicated on the belief that she was my biological daughter." "If Audrey had been treated kindly by that family, I wouldn't feel this intense revulsion toward Isabella. But the reality is, even if Isabella didn't know the truth, she still stole the life that rightfully belonged to Audrey." I enunciated every word clearly: "She is not innocent." William's eyes flickered; he seemed momentarily swayed. But then, a tearful, trembling voice came from behind me: "Mom..." The half-open front door was pushed wide. Isabella walked in, wearing her school uniform and carrying her backpack. Her steps were heavy, her eyes red as she fought back tears. "Do you really not want me anymore?" The moment she spoke, William's heart broke. He rushed over to her, his voice softening instantly. "Don't listen to your mother's nonsense. She's just so worried about your sister that she's not thinking straight. Right, Victoria?" He shot me a desperate look, silently begging me to play along. Isabella looked at me with those same pleading eyes, tears brimming, threatening to spill over at any second. If it were the old me, seeing her look so pitiful would have shattered my heart. But looking at her now, all I felt was profound, seething hatred. In my past life, it was only after my death that I learned the truth: the world I lived in was the setting of a "switched at birth" novel, where the fake daughter was the beloved protagonist. My biological daughter, Audrey, was the true heiress, but in the narrative, she was cast as the malicious secondary villain. Her identity had been maliciously swapped. She was raised in the countryside, suffering sixteen years of horrific abuse at the hands of her adoptive parents. One would think that returning to her rightful family would finally bring her happiness. But to everyone's shock, whether it was her biological parents, the household staff, or even the teachers and students at her new school—everyone favored the fake daughter, Isabella. Everyone pitied Isabella for losing her status as the "true heiress," yet no one ever bothered to ask Audrey how she had survived the past sixteen years. Including me. Her own biological mother. Under the insidious influence of the novel's "plot," every time I resolved to compensate my suffering biological daughter, the moment I laid eyes on Isabella, my mind and heart would be entirely consumed by her. Driven to extremes by this universal rejection, Audrey became radicalized, targeting Isabella at every turn. She died on her twenty-fourth birthday. It was the day of Isabella's wedding to the male lead. Audrey had kidnapped Isabella, intending a murder-suicide, but was ultimately shot by a police sniper on the roof of a thirty-eight-story building. My physical body had held Isabella, weeping tears of joy for her safety, while my soul floated in the air, screaming in agony as I watched Audrey plummet thirty-eight stories to her death. "Victoria!" William's harsh reprimand snapped me out of my memories. He frowned deeply, looking at me with a mix of anxiety and profound disappointment. "Are you truly willing to abandon the daughter you've raised for sixteen years for someone else?!" I instinctively looked up. The girl hiding near the staircase had a face ashen with despair, the light completely gone from her eyes. "Audrey is not 'someone else'." My breathing quickened, fueled by a potent mix of resentment and anger. "She is my precious daughter, carried in my womb for ten months! She is the one who should have been by my side for the past sixteen years!" I turned my glare toward Isabella, standing next to William, making absolutely no effort to hide my animosity: "If your biological parents hadn't stolen my daughter, if you hadn't usurped her place, Audrey would never have suffered all those years of torment!" Isabella's face drained of color instantly. She murmured, "Mom...?" "Do not call me Mom!" I stared at her coldly. "I only have one daughter, and her name is Audrey." Her tears spilled over instantly. She stumbled backward a few steps before turning and running out the door, sobbing. "Isabella!" William was both anxious and furious, his face dark as a thundercloud. "Did you have to speak to the child like that?!" "Victoria, when did you become so utterly unreasonable?" He threw that accusation at me and chased after her. I took a deep breath and looked toward the staircase. The space was empty; Audrey was gone. I walked straight upstairs and knocked on the door of the second-floor master bedroom. The door opened quickly. Audrey turned away in silence, walking back into the room. On the bed lay her backpack, packed and ready for reasons I couldn't fathom. "You don't need to do this. I know we are biologically mother and daughter, but in reality, we're no different than strangers." She kept her head down, her hands gripping the straps of her backpack tightly. "I'll move out. It won't disrupt your family's life." "But... could you perhaps lend me a little money? Just enough for a few months' living expenses. Once school starts, I'll find a part-time job near campus." I choked back a sob for a long moment before I could finally say her name. "Audrey, everything Mom said downstairs was the absolute truth." She froze. I took a deep breath and continued, "You saw everything just now, didn't you?" "Then why are you afraid to believe what I said?" "I know it's impossible for you to accept living under the same roof as Isabella and pretending to be loving sisters. Similarly, I find it impossible to continue playing mother and daughter with the thief who stole my biological daughter's life." I gently reached out and took her hand. "Can we live together from now on, just the two of us? Just you and me. You won't have to worry about tuition or living expenses. Mom can provide for you." I paused, my eyes growing hot. "Mom was always supposed to provide for you." She didn't answer, but her shoulders began to tremble. I leaned in closer and realized that, without me noticing, her face was covered in tears. She stopped pretending to be strong. She dropped the hardened shell she used to keep people at a distance. She turned and threw herself into my arms, choking out the two words with a raw, unfamiliar ache. "Mom." I held her tight, my own tears flowing like a broken dam. 02 In my previous life, after Audrey's death, Isabella and the male lead achieved their "happily ever after." As the plot reached its conclusion, I gradually broke free from the narrative's control and regained my sanity. Every night, I dreamt of Audrey's final, desperate look before she died, and her body plummeting from the thirty-eighth floor. I developed severe insomnia, replaying the days after Audrey returned home over and over in my mind. We had all favored Isabella, ignoring Audrey, belittling her, looking down on her, and falsely accusing her. In the eight years she spent back in the Hawthorne family, she hadn't experienced a single good day. In life, her reputation was destroyed; in death, she was despised and scorned by everyone. Her biological father had said, "If we had known she was going to hurt Isabella, we never would have brought her back!" Her biological brother had said, "Just thinking about having the same blood as that psycho makes me sick." Her biological mother had said, "How could I have given birth to a monster like her?" The daughter I carried for ten months only experienced the treatment she deserved on the very first day she entered the world. Every day after that was filled with suffering. Once free from the plot's control, I spent my days drowning in regret. By chance, I stumbled upon a conversation between Isabella and her biological parents. Only then did I discover that this seemingly fragile, kind-hearted adopted daughter had known her true identity since she was nine years old. She had incited her biological parents to abuse Audrey, even suggesting they sell her off to a remote mountain village to permanently bury the truth. Every single misfortune Audrey encountered after returning to the Hawthorne family had been orchestrated by Isabella. Her sole objective was to make everyone hate Audrey. I was paralyzed with shock. I burst out of hiding to confront Isabella, demanding to know why she did it. Whether under the plot's control or through years of genuine interaction, I had always viewed her as my daughter. I hated that I couldn't break free from the narrative sooner, and my heart bled for my biological daughter, Audrey. Yet, I couldn't bring myself to truly hate Isabella. I had raised her from a tiny infant into a beautiful young woman; she was my daughter too. I had always believed the gentle, kind persona she presented was her true self. Who could have imagined she was the mastermind behind my daughter's tragic life? I was broken and despairing. But after a brief moment of panic, Isabella's face contorted with hatred. "You forced me to do it!" "You all claimed you loved me the most! But the moment you found out I wasn't your biological daughter, didn't you immediately bring that bitch Audrey back?!" "And you, Mom! Didn't you tell me I was your only daughter? So why did you look like you lost your soul when Audrey died?!" "And now, you're here to accuse your favorite daughter over a dead person?! Why, Mom?! Why?!" We argued fiercely. In the ensuing struggle, she and her biological parents teamed up and pushed me off the second-floor balcony into an empty swimming pool. I died on impact. I thought my soul would descend to the underworld, where I might at least have the chance to beg Audrey for forgiveness. But to my shock, when I opened my eyes again, I had been sent back eight years in time. I was overjoyed to find that I was no longer under the plot's control. My very first action was to bring Audrey back from the countryside. Ignoring William's objections, I publicly announced Audrey's true identity to the world. Then, I took Isabella's biological parents to court. I was determined to give Audrey happiness. I would change her tragic fate, ensure she was happy every single day, and give her a completely new life. I refused to be the vicious supporting character in someone else's script ever again. "Are you really... divorcing him for me?" As I helped Audrey pack her things to leave the Hawthorne mansion and move into a property under my name, she couldn't hide her anxiety. "Will you regret it later? Giving all that up for me." I told her with absolute certainty, "No." "Your father and your brother chose Isabella, the girl they've lived with day in and day out. But I choose my biological daughter." "I know this is incredibly unfair to you, but I want you to know: they abandoned you first. You don't need to waste a single thought on them." I looked deeply into her eyes. "You only need to know this: you are my daughter. We share the same blood. It is the closest bond in the world. You have nothing to worry about. Mom will prove it to you." Her eyes reddened, and she nodded emphatically. Since I was going to change her tragic ending, this lifetime required cutting all ties with Isabella. I transferred Audrey to the top public high school in the city, explicitly avoiding the elite private academy Isabella attended. I also took her back to the Kensington family—my side of the family—to meet her grandfather, grandmother, uncle, and aunt. In my past life, the Kensington family had vastly preferred Audrey, the granddaughter who had suffered outside for over a decade, over Isabella. This time was no different. Compared to the spoiled, pampered Isabella, they clearly favored the sensible, obedient Audrey. Upon learning of my decision to divorce William, my parents and my brother were fully supportive. My marriage to William was a strategic business alliance. While we were fortunate enough to develop genuine feelings for each other after the wedding, those feelings had long since faded into a bland routine over the years. More importantly, he was keeping women on the side. Plural. In my past life, under the plot's control, my sole imperative was to provide Isabella with a perfect, unbroken family, so I had tolerated it in silence. Free from those constraints in this life, I directly mailed him the evidence of his years of infidelity that I had gathered. Less than fifteen minutes later, he called. "What is the meaning of this?" I frowned. "Was I not clear enough?" "Honey," William's voice softened, adopting a placating tone. "We've been married for so many years. At our age, is this really necessary?" "I was just having some fun on the side. You know you're the only official Mrs. Hawthorne. No one can change that." "If you really don't like it, I'll spend more time at home with you and the kids. Audrey just got back; causing a scene like this right now isn't a good look, is it?" "William Hawthorne," I said, my tone hardening. "Let me reiterate this one more time. I am divorcing you. This is not a joke, and I am not playing games. I can no longer tolerate living with you." "I find you repulsive. I find it repulsive that you are so blind you can't even recognize your own biological daughter, choosing instead to treat a human trafficker's child like a treasure. Do you understand me now?"
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