Chapter 4

The first time I met He Wei was when I was fifteen.

Mr. He finally discovered that I was his real daughter, the one who had been switched at birth.

So I was brought back to the He Family.

He Yu was the other child who had been switched.

When I saw her, He Yu was sitting on the sofa, looking a little distracted.

She saw me approaching and tried to stand up politely, but He Wei, who was sitting beside her playing on his phone, pulled her back.

“Since we’re all family, there’s no reason for us to give you a special welcome just because you’ve arrived.”

His gaze shifted from his phone screen to my face, giving me nothing more than an indifferent glance.

At the time, I didn’t understand that he was actually protecting He Yu, as if he was certain I would treat her badly.

I simply followed Mr. He in silence, and after seeing He Wei, I gave him a brief smile.

There was no particular reason-I seemed to have a natural fondness for him.

Because he was my brother.

But he didn’t welcome me from the very beginning.

Not like my real brother.

Being unwelcome was hard.

So as not to affect He Yu, the He Family always claimed to outsiders that I was just an adopted daughter they had taken in.

Because of this, He Yu’s friends didn’t like me either. They thought I had stolen He Yu’s place and made trouble for me.

They threw trash into the cubby under my desk, tossed out my homework notebooks, and mocked me with thinly veiled insults…

“Don’t you have a family of your own? Why do you have to come to someone else’s house and steal their family?”

“A cuckoo in the nest-how can you shamelessly call someone else’s father ‘Dad’?”

“Annoying brat. Shameless.”

I tried asking He Wei for help.

When I was cornered after school, I called him.

But the person who had just been holding an umbrella, chatting and laughing with He Yu-

The moment he saw my call, the smile on his face vanished instantly.

I called out to him, “Brother.”

I hoped he would explain things for me.

But all I got on the other end of the line was a cold, “What do you want?”

So all those words were swallowed back down my throat.