Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Ever since I was little, I had felt out of place in this family.

My father was a financial magnate. My mother was an international film queen.

As for me, my brain was average and my face was ordinary.

Maybe extremes really do reverse.

My brother, on the other hand, bloomed in every possible direction. He held his first solo art exhibition at four, entered Qingbei’s junior program at eight, and made the global top ten most handsome faces list at fifteen.

I wanted to be jealous. I wanted to twist myself into knots. I wanted to crawl around in the dark.

In the end, I chose to make peace with myself.

After all, the ancestral grave couldn’t keep blasting out good fortune forever.

So I drifted through life eating, sleeping, and waiting for death.

Until the genius girl who had gone viral all over the internet came knocking.

“The nurse in the delivery room admitted it herself. When we were born, she accidentally switched us. I am the real eldest daughter of the Su family!”

“You’re so ordinary. How could you possibly be Mom and Dad’s daughter?”

“Today, I’m taking back everything that belongs to me!”

Du Ruoqing had come alone, yet she carried herself like she had an army behind her.

Her words were so certain that our whole family, no, that I and the other three members of the family, all fell into deep thought.

My cold father said, “Switched?”

My dazzling mother said, “How would I know? After giving birth, I was busy counting stretch marks. Didn’t we hand the baby to Ah Jun?”

My expressionless brother was silent for three seconds before coldly spitting out one sentence.

“I was three.”

My dazzling mother went quiet for a few seconds, then continued shifting the blame.

“But you liked holding the baby so much. You even kept asking whether you could split such a fun toy in half and give one half to your little girlfriend Nannan.”

“Nannan wasn’t my girlfriend.”

“But every time she saw me, she called me Mom so sweetly…”

I sat there as if on pins and needles.

Du Ruoqing’s face did not look good either.

Seeing that my mother and brother were drifting farther and farther off topic, she finally stood up and interrupted them. “Dad, Mom, Brother, look at my face, then look at hers. Aren’t we the ones who look more like a family?”

She pointed at me on the sofa.

I touched my utterly plain face and nodded in agreement.

Growing up, the compliments my brother received included, but were not limited to, “handsome,” “good-looking,” and “carved from the same mold as his father.”

When it came to me, there was only one sentence.

“This girl sure grew up healthy.”

Melancholy, truly.

“Also, I have always been an excellent student with both good character and good grades. But as far as I know, she has always been at the bottom of her class. Even her university diploma was bought!”

Du Ruoqing continued presenting evidence.

Hearing this, I lowered my head in slight shame.

Ever since I started school, my brother had ranked first every time without suspense.

I had ranked last every time without dispute.

My teacher refused to believe in fate and gave me private tutoring. Then she developed intracranial hypertension and ended up in the ICU.

In her dazed state, she held my hand and kept asking, “What exactly is the relationship between them…”

I felt very guilty. I learned from the pain, tied my hair to the beam, stabbed my thigh, burned the midnight oil, and memorized an entire mathematics textbook the night before the exam.

On that exam, I became the first person in school history to fill the entire paper with math formulas and still score zero. I went viral across campus.

Thinking of this, I turned to my parents and brother with a grave expression.

“Is it possible, maybe, that you really are the family?”

My parents sank into thought.

My brother’s gaze turned solemn.

Du Ruoqing was still shouting, “Dad, Mom, you don’t believe I’m your daughter? I wandered outside alone for eighteen years and finally came home. How can you not believe me?”

Just as the atmosphere grew more and more tense, Wang Ma, who had been standing in the shadows, spoke.

“Sir, Madam, Young Master, Miss… actually, isn’t there a technology now called a paternity test?”