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Sold to the Wrong Family
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
My foster parents doted only on my sister. I never fought for anything, and still my family called me a stuck-up fake. I'd barely made it to the edge of college when my birth parents, a wealthy family...
Chương (4)
第1章
01
My foster parents doted only on my sister. I never fought for anything, and still my family called me a stuck-up fake.
I'd barely made it to the edge of college when my birth parents, a wealthy family, sent their butler to bring me home to Metropolis and reclaim my place among them.
【Run! The Hensons want sons over daughters. They dumped you at the orphanage on purpose the second they saw you weren't a boy!】
【That's right. They adopted a fake heir, and someday the whole fortune and every connection goes to him!】
I stared at the warning pop-ups that had appeared out of nowhere, frozen in place.
【They only want you back now because the Hensons need a marriage-alliance tool. You'll be forced to marry some widowed old man!】
【Yeah, and the fake heir hates you. He'll team up with the old geezer and have someone play with you until you're dead. It ends brutally.】
I shook my head fast and turned the butler down on the spot.
"No, thank you. I'm an adult now and I can support myself, so I won't be going back to Metropolis with you."
But the very next second, my sister rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath.
"Who are you kidding with that stuck-up act? It's disgusting."
Then she raised her hand, eyes shining, and looked at the butler.
"Sir, can I go back to the family in my sister's place?"
……
The words made me freeze. I lifted my eyes to Carly Fox, not quite able to believe it.
Her face held nothing but eagerness now, her gaze locked on the butler.
As if terrified of losing a chance that came once in a lifetime.
The butler looked Carly over twice and said, polite but distant,
"Understood. I'll relay your request to Mr. and Mrs. Henson exactly as you've stated it."
Then he said nothing more, turned, and left with the servants who'd come with him.
In the cramped, narrow doorway of our home, only Carly and I were left.
I frowned gently, a little helpless.
"Carly, don't do something reckless."
"Life in that family isn't the glossy thing you imagine…"
I thought again of the dense stream of warning pop-ups in my head.
Once you were taken back into the Henson family, it really was dangerous.
Carly and I didn't get along, but I still couldn't stand by and watch her jump straight into the pit.
But Carly rolled her eyes so hard it was almost obscene, her whole face full of scorn.
"Carly? No, I think the one being reckless here is you."
She looked down her nose at me, contempt in every line of her face.
"What is this above-it-all, wants-nothing act you keep putting on?"
"I know you've always wanted to find your birth parents. And now that a wealthy family has come in person to claim you and take you home, suddenly you don't want to go?"
I pushed down the tangle of feelings and said flatly,
"It's not an act. I really don't want to go."
But the plain truth only made Carly angrier.
"I think you're deliberately playing the stuck-up saint to win the Hensons over."
"You want them to beg you again and again, so you can go back to Metropolis looking down on everyone, right?"
"It's disgusting. You've been like this your whole life. Never fighting for anything, never wanting anything."
"You just have to play the girl with no desires, so everyone gets the wrong idea and thinks I'm the vain one!"
"Let me tell you, I'm going to the Hensons this time no matter what!"
I watched Carly rage, and something bitter settled in my chest.
My foster parents couldn't have children, so they adopted me from the orphanage.
But the second year after they took me in, my foster mother suddenly got pregnant.
That was the year Carly came into this house.
To them, Carly was the flesh and blood they'd struggled so hard to have, a treasure heaven had granted them.
Everything good in the house always went to Carly first.
I tried, once, to fight for my share. All it earned me was my foster parents' scolding.
Little by little, I turned quiet, stopped reaching for anything, stopped fighting.
And then my foster parents scolded me for being cold and ungrateful.
Carly called me a hypocrite, a stuck-up fake.
No matter what I did, it was wrong.
I drew a soft breath and tried one last time.
"Carly, the Hensons' situation is complicated. It isn't as simple as you think."
"If you rush into it, all you'll find is trouble…"
"Enough!"
Carly cut me off sharply, her face ugly.
"Spare me the doom and gloom!"
"I think you're just a stuck-up fake. You want that family to invite you a few more times, then you'll go back all reluctant, so everyone can praise you for caring nothing about fame and money!"
"What, now that you see me going after this chance, you're panicking?"
At that, the last flicker of any urge to talk her out of it died in me.
"Suit yourself."
第2章
02
That evening, the moment her foster parents got home from work, Carly threw herself at them, eyes brimming, nose red.
"Dad, Mom, you're finally back."
Her face crumpled with hurt, and she poured it on:
"Do you know? Lucy's real parents are the Hensons. That's one of the richest families there is!"
"The Hensons wanted to take her home just now, to bring her back into the family, and she flat-out refused."
"I thought it would be such a waste to lose a chance like that, so I worked up the nerve to ask if I could go in her place."
"But Lucy wasn't the least bit grateful. She kept blocking me, deliberately trying to scare me off."
Her foster mother's face shifted through several looks, calculation flickering in her eyes.
My expression stayed even. I said coldly,
"I only told Carly to think it over first."
"Enough!"
I'd barely opened my mouth before my foster father cut me off.
"Lucy, how can you not know what's good for you?"
"If you don't go back to that family, how are you ever going to repay us for raising you?"
Nestled against her mother's side, Carly tugged the corner of her mouth up, just slightly.
"Dad, Mom, I know Lucy's always held herself above us. She's never thought much of this little family of ours."
"But this really is a rare chance. If I could go to the Hensons, I'd be able to give this family a good life, and take proper care of you both."
That pleased them.
Her foster mother softened at once, stroking Carly's hair gently.
Then she turned a cold look on me.
"Look at Carly. Now look at yourself!"
"We raised you both the same. Carly knows how to be grateful, she thinks about this family with her whole heart. And you?"
"Wandering around all day acting like you want nothing from anyone. What's the act for?"
I curled my hands into fists, a fine, prickling bitterness spreading through my chest.
It had been this way my whole life.
Carly always knew how to play sweet and helpless in front of the adults.
And I, the one who never fought for anything, was always the ungrateful girl putting on airs.
My foster father closed in on me, staring down from above.
"I think you did it on purpose."
"The Hensons came to get you themselves, and you put on your airs and refused, so you could keep them dangling."
"Wait until they come begging two or three times, so you'd look all the more precious!"
"Now that Carly's willing to go in your place, it doesn't sit right with you, so you put on a show and try to stop her!"
Seeing this, Carly nodded eagerly.
"Lucy did it on purpose. She definitely still thinks I'm vain and greedy."
"But all I want is to grab the one chance to change our fate, so Mom and Dad don't have to wear themselves out anymore. Is that so wrong?"
"If Lucy really went back to that family, she'd forget the Foxes ever existed, and she'd never repay a thing."
Her foster father chewed on Carly's words.
The more he thought about it, the more sense it made to him.
"This gets settled here and now!"
"Since you refused to go back to the Hensons just now, then put it down in black and white!"
He turned, dug out paper and a pen, and slapped them hard onto the wooden table.
"You'll write that you voluntarily give up going back to the Hensons, and that you'll never fight Carly for this chance!"
"So that later, when you see Carly rise in the world, you don't turn green with envy, take it all back, and come crawling home to point the finger at us!"
I lifted my eyes to the three of them, to those ugly faces.
The last thread of warmth I'd held for them as family faded away.
So this was what they all thought of me.
Tucked in her mother's arms, Carly kept feeding the fire:
"I don't want to force Lucy, really. I'm just afraid she'll regret it later."
"And if Lucy ends up blaming me for taking her chance, I honestly won't know what to do."
Just then, the pop-ups appeared in front of my eyes again.
*【Perfect. The butler told the Hensons himself, and they agreed right away to let Carly come instead!】*
*【The Hensons don't care in the slightest whether she's their real daughter. All they want is an obedient tool for their marriage alliance!】*
*【Congratulations, girl! No marrying a widowed old man, and no being persecuted by the fake heir!】*
第3章
03
Watching them, the tension in me finally eased a little.
If they wanted to charge ahead like this, I wasn't going to waste any more breath trying to stop them.
So I picked up the pen and wrote, without a moment's hesitation:
I voluntarily give up reclaiming my birthright with the Henson family, and I will never interfere with Carly Fox taking my place.
But my foster father turned the paper over in his hands again and again, still not satisfied.
"This isn't enough."
"Who's to say you're not just pretending to give in, planning to sneak back to the Hensons behind our backs?"
My foster mother nodded along.
"Exactly. Lucy's the best at putting on an act. Nobody schemes quieter than she does."
Carly kept her eyes lowered, playing the sweet one, her voice soft.
"Right, it's not that I don't want to trust you, sis."
"It's just that a chance at a family like that is too precious. I really can't afford to gamble on it!"
"If she changes her mind in the night and slips off to Metropolis, I'm finished."
The very idea broke my foster father out in a cold sweat. He said, in a tone that left no room for argument,
"Lucy, you're moving up to the attic. You don't set one foot out of there without our permission!"
My eyes snapped up.
I could hardly believe what I'd heard.
"There's no need for that!"
"I've already signed the statement. I won't go back on it."
My foster mother let out a sneer and shoved me hard.
"Still putting on airs! Even now you've got that dead-fish look on your face!"
"Who's going to believe you'd just hand a chance like this to your sister?"
"Get up there, now! Don't make me hit you!"
And so they dragged me up to the attic and locked me in.
The cramped space was hot and airless.
It was crammed with everything the family didn't use anymore.
I curled up in the corner, close enough to watch dust drift through the air.
From dusk into the dead of night, not one of them came up with food.
I pressed a hand to my stomach, that familiar hunger burning in my gut.
But I was used to being treated this way by now. It hardly felt worth resenting.
Downstairs, meanwhile, the mood couldn't have been livelier.
My foster parents dug out the family's savings and took Carly out shopping through the night.
They were getting ready for the wealthy family, fussing over Carly, the hope in their eyes impossible to hide.
"My Carly's just born lucky. She was made for the good life."
My foster mother held an expensive silk dress up against Carly, beaming.
"Not like some people. Hand them a gift and they spit on it, turn their nose up at a fortune just to act all high and mighty."
My foster father sat off to the side, nodding, full of feeling.
"Once Carly's in with the Hensons, this family turns everything around. No more scraping by."
Carly studied herself in the mirror, greed all over her eyes, but her voice stayed gentle.
"It's all thanks to how well you raised me, Mom, Dad. I'd never be so ungrateful as my sister and throw a chance like this away."
"Sis is just too greedy. She wants everyone to flatter her, to beg her, before she'll accept anything."
"I'm different. I only want to hold on to this and take good care of you both from now on."
The little speech left my foster parents glowing, doting on her more than ever.
Leaning against the wall, I listened quietly to the laughter downstairs.
The pop-ups scrolled through my mind again.
【Dying, looks like the whole Fox family treats Carly like a walking jackpot, waiting to strike it rich overnight.】
【They have no idea the Hensons want a perfectly obedient tool. They're not giving Carly a cent!】
【The more smug Carly is now, the more miserable she'll be later.】
I closed my eyes, calm all the way through.
She chose this road herself.
I'd warned her, I'd tried to stop her. I'd done everything I could.
Early the next morning, the Henson family butler called.
He got straight to the point.
"Miss Carly Fox, the Hensons have agreed to let you go back and reclaim the birthright in Miss Lucy Fox's place."
"You may come to the old Henson estate on your own. The exact location has already been sent to you."
第4章
04
The Fox household boiled over with excitement.
Carly's hand trembled faintly around her phone.
She fought to push down the corners of her mouth, forcing on a look of anxious, dutiful humility.
"Thank you, sir. I promise I'll behave, and I'll never let the Henson family down."
Lucy's foster mother's eyes went red with emotion as she grabbed Carly's hand and reminded her over and over.
"Carly, once you're with the Hensons, you have to be good and obedient."
"Learn to keep the Hensons happy, and hold on to this fortune with everything you've got."
"From now on you're a young lady of a great house. You'll never have to suffer with us again."
Lucy's foster father added his own urging, his voice earnest.
"Don't forget everything we did to raise you. Once you've made it, you'd better pull the family up with you."
Carly nodded obediently, smugness she couldn't quite hide sitting in her eyes.
"Don't worry, Mom, Dad. I'll bring you wealth and comfort."
She turned to glance up at the attic, a cold sneer flickering deep in her eyes.
"I'm not like my sister. Even now she still has to play the noble one."
Hearing that, I gave my head a small shake.
The pop-ups started scrolling again, saying exactly what I was thinking.
【LOL! The Hensons don't care about her at all. Last time they sent the butler, this time they just made her come on her own!】
【Basically she's a tool, not worth the smallest bit of their attention.】
【And the Fox family's still bowing in gratitude, scrambling to latch onto money like that. Pathetic.】
They waited until dusk, when word came from the Hensons.
Only then did my foster parents confirm that Carly had reached the old Henson estate in Metropolis without a hitch.
They strolled up to the attic and yanked open the dusty wooden door.
"Come out."
I bore the pain and walked out of the attic without groveling or bowing my head.
But to them, that only looked like more fake pride.
My foster father's temper flared. He snatched up the few old bags that were all I had and hurled them onto the concrete outside the door.
Books and clothes scattered across the ground.
"Carly's a Henson daughter now. From here on we get to live in comfort and luxury."
"Don't you drag us down and ruin the good days coming to this family."
My foster mother stepped up right behind him, hands on her hips, not mincing a word.
"Aren't you the proud one? Too good for money and great houses, aren't you?"
"Then keep being proud. Get out of our house and never come back."
"We wore ourselves out raising you, and you don't have an ounce of gratitude, just that stuck-up act."
"Once Carly's flying high, you can regret it all you want. It'll have nothing to do with us."
I bent down and silently gathered everything back up, piece by piece.
"Don't worry. I won't bother you."
And so, between me and the Fox family, every tie was cut clean.
School was about to start anyway, so I went to check in at college on my own.
I applied to move into the dorms early and lined up a work-study job on campus.
A few days later, a trending item crossed my feed.
#Metropolis Henson Family Reunited With Long-Lost True Daughter#
There was a lavish reunion banquet, packed with all kinds of high society.
And there was Carly, in a haute couture gown, standing beside Mr. and Mrs. Henson and their fake heir.
She looked every inch the doted-on young mistress of a great house.
The comments were nothing but envy, everyone marveling at how lucky Carly was.
I calmly closed the news and went back to the work in front of me.
Then the pop-ups appeared again.
【Just wait. The more glamorous it looks now, the worse it'll end!】
【The Hensons' warmth and grace are all fake. Carly will find out soon enough!】
【Look at the fake heir's eyes, terrifying! It won't be long before Carly can't hold up anymore!】
But none of it had anything to do with me now.
A few more days passed, and I was finishing my part-time shift, about to head back to the dorm to rest.
The phone in my backpack started ringing.
An unknown number.
I hesitated for two seconds, then answered.
"Lucy! Help me! I want to come home!"
"I don't want to be with the Hensons anymore!"