: A Cruel Joke

On my birthday, the fake heiress committed suicide by jumping into the sea.

She left a suicide note, saying she wanted to give my place back to me.

I, who was already walking on thin ice in this family, was instantly plunged into hell.

Mom and Dad despised me. "We've already let you enjoy the wealth and luxury of the Valerius Family, so why couldn't you tolerate her?!"

My brother resented me. "You were raised in the orphanage like a savage and are completely unworthy of the Valerius Family! It was Sera who begged us to bring you back. How can you be so ungrateful!"

They never mentioned that this so-called life of luxury meant living in the Valerius Family home as Seraphina Valerius's maid and lackey.

After Seraphina Valerius had me brought back, she would beat, curse, and humiliate me in secret.

No matter what happened, they would unconditionally take Seraphina Valerius's side.

From then on, I was locked in the kennel in the Valerius Family's backyard, and no one ever checked on me again.

That winter, a maid complained it was too cold and didn't bring me any food. I had to eat snow to survive.

The shock to my already fragile stomach caused me to develop a high fever.

The ordeal lasted the entire night, until I finally lost consciousness.

I don't even know if I died from the fever or from the cold.

Not long after I died, Seraphina Valerius returned.

...

"Surprise! I'm back!"

Seraphina Valerius came skipping through the front door, dressed in the latest Chanel suit and pulling a gaudy pink suitcase.

Her hair was styled in fashionable loose waves, her makeup was flawless, and she radiated an aura of youth and vitality.

She was a stark contrast to the gloom that had settled over the house.

My soul, floating in the living room, froze completely when I heard her voice.

I never imagined her so-called suicide was a complete lie.

I never thought a soul could feel such a bone-deep chill; it was as if my hollow chest was being clutched and torn apart all over again.

'She came back perfectly fine. Then what was all the abuse I suffered because of her, and my death, even for?'

"Sera!" Mom was the first to react, joyfully rushing over to hug her as tears instantly streamed down her face.

"You... you're not dead?!"

"Oh, you silly girl, you scared me to death! Where have you been? Do you have any idea how worried sick we were?!"

Dad and my brother, Caden Valerius, also crowded around her, their faces holding identical expressions of shock and elation.

Seraphina Valerius stuck her tongue out playfully and clung to Mom's arm. "Oh, come on," she whined. "I just wanted a trip to Europe, but I was afraid you wouldn't let me go alone, so I... played a little prank."

"A little prank?" Dad's expression darkened, but his tone was filled more with lingering fear and indulgence than anger. "Is that something you can joke about?"

"Exactly. Don't you ever do that again," my brother Caden Valerius added, his face stern, but he reached out and ruffled her hair.

Basking in the adoration of her family, Seraphina Valerius let her eyes scan the living room, seemingly at random, and asked in a tone of pure innocence:

"My sister isn't mad at me, is she? The letter I left was just to let her know I had no intention of fighting her for Mom and Dad's affection."

No one answered her question about me.

The atmosphere in the living room instantly froze at her question, "My sister isn't mad at me, is she?"

They froze. As if by some unspoken agreement, everyone's gaze drifted subconsciously toward the backyard.

They remembered me.

They remembered how, after Seraphina Valerius's "incident," they had unleashed all their resentment and fury upon me, the supposed culprit.

The air instantly grew awkward and heavy.

Seraphina Valerius blinked, her face a mask of innocence. "What's wrong? Speaking of which, where is my sister?"

"I'll go see her," Caden Valerius said, a flicker of barely perceptible pity and guilt crossing his face.

Perhaps Seraphina Valerius's safe return had finally caused a crack in that heart of his, long blinded by anger and favoritism.

'He probably figured that since Seraphina Valerius was fine, my punishment should come to an end.'

My spirit drifted lightly behind him. I watched his tall, straight back, my heart a silent, dead expanse.

'What meaning could this belated concern possibly hold for my already cold corpse?'

The dog kennel in the backyard was just as it had been before I died.

The heavy iron chain drooped forlornly to the ground, one end attached to a wooden stake, the shackle on the other end mottled with rust.

Caden Valerius stood before the kennel, silent for a long time.

There was no trace of my existence here, save for the faint, lingering scent of despair that still clung to the air.

"Mrs. Watkins!" He stood up and shouted to the maid hanging laundry not far away. "Where is she? Where's the person who was locked up here?"

Mrs. Watkins came trotting over at the sound of his voice, her face a mask of fawning, terrified smiles.

She was the first person to find me after I died. Back then, she had been scared out of her wits, collapsing to the ground with a scream.

"E-Eldest Young Master..." Mrs. Watkins's eyes darted away as she pointed at the broken dog chain.

"I... I don't know. Yesterday... when I came to check, she was still here. Maybe... maybe the chain wasn't secured properly, and she managed to break free and run away."

"Ran away?" Caden repeated the two words, the warmth in his voice chilling with every passing second.

"Yes, yes." Seeing that he didn't erupt in anger immediately, Mrs. Watkins grew a little bolder and quickly added more.

"You know how it is. She came from a place like the orphanage—she's wild, untamable."

"We gave her food and shelter, but she was never satisfied. Who knows what resentment she was harboring against us in her heart. Now that she had a chance, of course she'd run."

"Ran away?" He sneered, the guilt in his eyes replaced by anger and contempt.

He slammed his foot into the kennel's wooden door with a loud BANG.

"You ungrateful thing!" he cursed, gritting his teeth.

"What sin did the Valerius Family commit to bring back such an ungrateful wretch! Do you know how long Sera pleaded with us to let her come back?"

"We let her live in our house, we gave her food and clothes, and this is how she repays us? She ran off without a single word, without any explanation! A true savage!"

I quietly watched his furious profile, and the last lingering ember of warmth in my heart—the one I called kinship—was extinguished completely.

He didn't know that on the morning after I died, Mrs. Watkins had discovered my stiff corpse.

She was afraid of taking responsibility, and even more afraid of being tainted by such an unlucky affair.

So, under the cover of darkness, she wrapped me in a tattered old bedsheet and, as if tossing out a piece of trash, dumped me in the most remote patch of wasteland in the hills behind the estate.

With my body unburied, my soul could not enter the cycle of reincarnation.

I could only be the most faithful of audiences, forced to watch day after day as they showered Seraphina Valerius with twice the affection, celebrating her return.

The living room was once again filled with sounds of joy and laughter.

Mother held Seraphina Valerius's hand, fussing over her solicitously, as if to make up for all the worry of the past few days.

Father, though stern-faced, couldn't hide the doting affection in his eyes, and he tacitly allowed Seraphina Valerius to use his credit card to buy the latest model sports car.

As for Caden Valerius, after his initial anger, he was quickly won over by Seraphina Valerius's combination of pouting and gift-giving.

The family was once again a picture of perfect harmony.

Until, on the seventh day, a phone call from the police station shattered this false harmony.

My mother answered the phone. My soul hovered beside her, clearly hearing the calm, detached male voice on the other end.

"Hello, is this Mr. Valerius's residence? This is the Southgate Precinct. We found an unidentified female body in a vacant lot in Westwood. Based on our preliminary investigation and cross-referencing with missing persons reports, we suspect it may be your missing daughter, Elara Valerius."

The color drained from my mother's face in an instant.

Her hand holding the phone trembled slightly. Her gaze subconsciously drifted to Seraphina Valerius, who was playing video games on the carpet with my brother.

Seraphina Valerius heard the name "Elara Valerius" and immediately looked up, a flicker of something unnatural passing through her wide, innocent eyes.

"Mom, who's on the phone?" she asked nonchalantly.

Before my mother could answer, she burst into an exaggerated laugh, as if she had already guessed what it was about.

"It's not a scammer, is it? There are so many of those calls these days, saying so-and-so from your family got into trouble and you need to send them money."

"How could something happen to a person like Elara Valerius? She's probably shacked up in some man's bed, having the time of her life."

It was as if her words had jolted my mother back to her senses. Her initial panic was immediately replaced by disgust.

Her voice turned cold and hard as she spoke into the phone. "Officer, you must be mistaken. My daughter is perfectly fine; she isn't missing. The person you're talking about is just someone we took in from the orphanage. She was rebellious and ran away on her own. She has nothing to do with our family. Don't call us about this kind of thing again. It's bad luck!"

With that, she slammed the phone down.

It was as if I suddenly couldn't feel pain anymore.

Hearing her call me "bad luck," hearing her scoff at the news of my death, I felt a strange sense of calm.

Perhaps I'd heard it so many times I'd just gone numb.

So in their minds, I wasn't even worthy of having my life or death confirmed.

My life or death wasn't even as credible as one of Seraphina Valerius's flippant guesses.

But while they wanted to deceive themselves, reality wouldn't allow it.

Half an hour later, a police car pulled up in front of the Valerius estate.

Two grim-faced police officers came in, showed their badges, and succinctly explained their purpose before demanding that the family come to the station immediately to identify the body.

This time, no one could claim it was a scam.

On the way to the police station, the atmosphere in the car was terrifyingly oppressive.

Seraphina Valerius must have found the silence too awkward, or perhaps she wanted to further solidify her position in the family, because she began to prattle on with her "analysis."

"Dad, Mom, Bro, don't you worry."

"I think this must be another one of Elara Valerius's ploys for sympathy. She saw that I came back and that you all treat me so well, so she felt resentful and deliberately cooked up this whole scheme to win your sympathy."

"Maybe she ran off with some good-for-nothing boyfriend, got dumped, and was too embarrassed to come back. So she decided to stage this whole drama to make us beg her to return."

My brother, Caden Valerius, scoffed. "She had a boyfriend?"

"Of course she did," Seraphina Valerius immediately chimed in, her voice laced with a hint of mystery and contempt.

"Don't you remember, Bro? Didn't I tell you last time that I saw her getting all handsy with some guy from off-campus? The man looked like he was almost forty, driving a beat-up van. You could tell he was bad news just by looking at him. I said a couple of words to her about it, and she actually talked back to me, claiming she was just picking up a package."