“If you don’t reply soon, I’ll have your little cottage blown up so your foster parents won’t even have ashes left.”

I floated nearby, looking at the empty chat screen with a bitter smile.

Oh, Daniel Reed…

I’m already dead. If anyone really replied to your messages, now that would be a ghost.

But to my shock, the next second, a reply popped up.

“Stop looking for me. I will never go back with you.”

The veins on Daniel’s forehead pulsed violently.

He instinctively clenched his phone, though even he couldn’t tell if it was from excitement or fury.

Even I was stunned.

Who was pretending to be me, answering Daniel’s messages?

Just as Daniel was about to call, an old woman stepped out from the neighboring yard.

“Who are you looking for?”

She was hard of hearing, so her voice was loud. But the moment she heard the bodyguards mention “Emily Carter,” she trembled all over, slammed the door shut, and didn’t look back.

Seeing this, Daniel quickly chased after her.

“Ma’am, do you know something? Where is Emily?”

From inside came the old woman’s trembling voice:

“Don’t ask me. Emmy is dead, she’s been dead a long time…”

Daniel’s body stiffened instantly.

“Old lady, what nonsense are you spouting?”

But there was no more sound from within.

The truth was, Mrs. Thompson—the neighbor—knew very well that I was dead.

When Chloe Miller’s men had dragged my half-dead body to the town entrance and set me ablaze, it was Mrs. Thompson who had been forced to hand them the torch.

Now, her words made Daniel uneasy and confused.

Behind him, a bodyguard sneered:

“Mr. Reed, she’s probably just a crazy old woman. You can’t trust what she says.”

“And didn’t Emily just text you? How could a dead person send messages?”

Daniel nodded, his expression easing.

“You’re right.”

He turned and left with his men, while behind the door Mrs. Thompson shook violently, tears streaming down her face as she muttered over and over:

“I’m sorry, Emmy. I’m so sorry. They threatened my grandson. They said if I didn’t burn you, they’d break his legs…”

“It’s Grandma’s fault. Forgive me…”

I drifted not far away, shaking my head, wanting to reach out and comfort her.

Grandma, it’s not your fault.

The true culprits were the ones who wanted me dead.

Thinking of Chloe, I clenched my fists and returned, intending to frighten her.

And there she was, clutching the very phone that had once been mine—

pretending to be me as she typed messages to Daniel.

Memories I had almost buried came surging back.

Two months ago, Ryan Brooks had beaten me within an inch of my life, then tossed me to a group of vagrants to be violated.

Afterward, he had me dumped back at the Miller family’s door.

But Chloe intercepted me.

She publicly claimed I had gone missing, while secretly bribing professional killers to drag me to that countryside cottage.

“Emily, why should you be the true daughter? You never should have appeared in front of our parents. You never should have lived in this world.”

“Now I’ll send you where you belong.”

Towering above me in high heels, she looked down with contempt.

She reveled in watching me kneel and beg for my life.

In return, she only inflicted harsher torment and revenge.

She forced someone close to me to burn me alive, then scattered my ashes.

After covering her tracks, she confiscated my phone.

And for these past two months, she had been secretly holding it, reading Daniel’s endless texts to me.

But Chloe never truly replied.

Sometimes, she deliberately sent a short message back—

just enough to make Daniel Reed believe I wasn’t dead, only hiding.

I watched as Daniel’s texts came one after another, piling up higher than all his earlier accusations.

His tone shifted from anger, to helplessness, to something almost pleading.

“Emmy, sweetheart, I’ve been looking for you for so long. Please stop hiding from me, okay?”

Chloe’s smile froze instantly.

Realizing what she had done, she hurled the phone to the ground, smashing it to pieces.

“Emily Carter, you’re dead! How dare you still make him speak to you so tenderly? You don’t deserve it!”

I stood nearby, and for the first time in a long while, I felt a flicker of satisfaction.

Perhaps seeing Chloe so enraged was a form of revenge in itself.

That night, after failing to find me anywhere, Daniel drowned himself in liquor at a nightclub, drinking until he was senseless. For a fleeting moment, his eyes showed a trace of regret.

“Was I wrong?”

“I knew Ryan Brooks was no suitable match, but the marriage alliance had to happen. If Emily hadn’t gone, it would have been Chloe.”

“Chloe was raised like a pampered princess—how could she have endured such abuse?”

“So Emily was the better choice.”

He confessed this to his friends, and I hovered beside him silently, realizing he had always known what kind of man Ryan truly was.

When it came time to choose, he discarded me without a second thought.

“Daniel, it’s not your fault. Compared to a highborn lady like Chloe Miller, anyone in your place would’ve made the same choice…”

Daniel shook his head, about to reply—

but just then, his assistant rushed over in a panic.

“Mr. Reed, Emily Carter may… already be dead.”

Daniel’s head snapped up. “What did you just say?”

“I checked the hospital records. More than two months ago, her Social Security record was terminated.”

The assistant spoke gravely.

“In the United States, there are only two possibilities. One, the person left the country and their record was closed.”

“The second reason is that the person has died.”

Daniel’s face darkened instantly. For the first time, he realized my disappearance was not simple at all.

“No… I can’t just sit here and do nothing.”

With a sudden crack, the glass in his hand shattered. He grabbed his coat and bolted for the door.

Alarmed, his friend shouted as he chased after him:

“Daniel, where are you going? Don’t do anything reckless!”

But under the haze of alcohol, Daniel—usually calm and restrained—lost all reason.

Ignoring the façade of cordiality between the two families, he stormed into the Brooks residence and landed a solid punch on Ryan Brooks’s face.

“Where is Emily Carter?”

Ryan, infamous for his violent temper, would normally have fought back immediately.

But instead, he let out a sharp scream, crouched on the floor with his hands over his head, and cried for help.

His reaction was so strange that Daniel froze in shock.

“Stop pretending! Tell me where Emily is!”

“She was perfectly fine two months ago. Why has her Social Security identity been terminated?”

“What did you do to her? I’m warning you—this marriage alliance doesn’t change the fact that Emily is a daughter of the Miller family. If you dared harm her, I’ll be the first to destroy you.”

Ryan, who had been trapped in his own nightmares, suddenly focused on the man before him.

His pupils cleared, the terror in his eyes slowly fading as he recognized Daniel.

“Daniel Reed, didn’t you marry that imposter from the Miller family?”

“Get this straight—Emily Carter is my wife. How I deal with her is my business. Don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong—”

Before Ryan Brooks could finish, he took another solid punch from Daniel.

“I won’t ask a second time.”

Daniel gritted his teeth, forcing out the words.

“Where is Emily Carter?”

Beaten into submission, Ryan clutched his head, no longer daring to mouth off.

“I sent her back to the Miller family two months ago. I haven’t seen her since. Why are you asking me? Go to the Millers!”

Daniel refused to believe it. He raised his fist again, ready to strike, when Ryan screamed for his butler.

“If you don’t believe me, check the surveillance. This was two months ago. That day, she looked so sour I couldn’t stand it. I gave her a beating and had her thrown out.”

Daniel stared at the footage, unblinking.

Ryan wasn’t lying.

But the longer he watched, the paler Daniel’s face became, his eyes gradually reddening.

“She’s a woman. How could you beat her so viciously?”

Ryan choked under Daniel’s grip, but still sneered.

“What’s this? Feeling sorry for her?”

“If your wife sees you care this much about another woman, won’t she get jealous? She might even kill someone.”

Daniel rolled up his sleeves, yanked off his watch, and pummeled him mercilessly this time.

I floated not far away, watching.

So, Daniel had always known I was beaten.

But he had clung to the belief that Ryan, for the sake of appearances between the Brooks and Miller families, wouldn’t strike too hard.

He never imagined that I would vanish entirely for two months.

He thought I was hiding at Ryan’s place, or nursing injuries in the countryside.

But I wasn’t anywhere. Even my Social Security record had been erased.

And Daniel knew exactly what that meant.

Amid Ryan’s screams and pleas, Daniel finally let him go.

“If Emily has really come to harm, I’ll make you pay with your life.”

Daniel spat the words and stormed out.

I chased after him, shouting in vain:

“Ryan Brooks deserves death, but he wasn’t the one who killed me—it was your wife, Chloe Miller!”

I hadn’t died under Ryan’s abuse.

I died from Chloe’s knife—thrust into my chest, tearing me apart.

But Daniel couldn’t hear me.

He stumbled back home in a daze, which quickly drew Chloe’s irritation.

“Daniel, what have you been so busy with lately? You haven’t taken me shopping in forever.”

Wearing a revealing nightgown and doused in perfume, Chloe leaned close to him.

But Daniel coolly pushed her aside.

“Chloe, be good. I’m exhausted tonight. I still have work to finish.”

He turned into his study.

The moment the door shut, Chloe’s eyes turned vicious and venomous.

“Tired? Don’t think I don’t know you’re still looking for Emily Carter.”

“Too bad you’ll never know—she’s already dead. I didn’t even leave you her remains. You’ll never see her again for the rest of your life.”

Daniel sat dazed in his study for a long time, restless. The thought of Emily’s disappearance gnawed at him endlessly.

In the middle of the night, he called his assistant again.

“No matter the cost, no matter the connections—find Emily Carter.”