Hearing this.

I instinctively fell silent, offering no immediate response.

After all, the current me truly desired absolutely no entanglement with anyone from the C family.

Right at that moment, Sera seemed to spot someone. She began waving her hands in pure delight, shouting at the top of her lungs:

"Christian!"

I turned my head.

And there.

I beheld Christian.

A mere eight-year-old Christian.

Sera excitedly bounded forward a few steps, tugging at Christian’s sleeve with immense joy.

"Oh, by the way, Clara, I've officially changed my name. I'm called Sera now. And this is my older brother, Christian. You two should introduce yourselves."

Christian stared at me, giving a barely perceptible nod.

His cold demeanor stood in stark, jarring contrast to Sera's bursting enthusiasm.

His personality seemed to have always been this way.

Whenever he dealt with unfamiliar people, he maintained an incredibly aloof, indifferent, and distant facade.

In my past life, during the initial period after I was adopted into his household, he almost never initiated a conversation with me.

For the longest time, I genuinely believed he utterly detested me.

It wasn't until much later, as time dragged on, that the two of us gradually grew familiar with one another.

"Christian, she was my friend back at the orphanage. Her name is Clara."

"Oh right, Clara, have you changed your name yet?"

Changing my name?

I froze slightly, then shook my head.

"Not yet."

In my previous life, after being adopted by his family, I had indeed changed my name.

To Clara.

That name had accompanied me all the way until I turned eighteen.

Right up until Chloe returned to the household.

Upon hearing that my name was Clara, and hearing me address his parents as Mom and Dad, Chloe flew into a devastating rage, screaming that I was shameless and utterly disgraceful.

She accused me of stealing her father, her mother, and her older brother.

Very quickly, his mother approached me, suggesting that it would be better if I simply addressed her as Auntie from then on.

I immediately grasped the underlying implication.

From that moment forward, I began calling his mother Auntie and his father Uncle.

Even for Christian, I stopped calling him my older brother.

The family also swiftly reverted my legal name back to my original one—Clara.

Only after that series of maneuvers did Chloe finally quiet down a bit.

10

"Clara, what is the surname of the family that adopted you? Maybe Christian knows them. Can I come over to your house to play sometime?"

Sera...

Oh, wait.

Sera was still chattering away incessantly beside me.

To be perfectly frank.

I really wanted to leave.

This girl’s personality was entirely too dense and oblivious.

She failed to see that both Christian and I had absolutely zero desire to socialize with each other.

"Are we even close? Why on earth should she let you come to our house to play?"

A distinctly cool, sharp boyish voice cut right into the conversation.

Following the sound.

It turned out to be Julian.

Seeing a new figure suddenly materialize by my side, Sera looked thoroughly bewildered.

"Who is this?" she asked instinctively.

I paused for a brief moment before responding:

"My older brother, Julian."

Sera's eyes instantly widened, staring straight at him.

"What are you doing here?"

Julian addressed the question directly to me.

"Nothing much," I murmured softly.

"Don't just chat with random people carelessly. You aren't even familiar with them. Let's go, I'll walk you back to your classroom."

Sera was just a little girl after all, and her face flushed with an awkward embarrassment.

Christian swept a brief glance over Julian, remaining entirely silent from beginning to end.

Once we returned to the classroom.

"Is anyone in class bullying you? If anyone tries anything, you tell me immediately."

Julian spoke to me with absolute seriousness.

Even though his face was entirely flush with childish innocence, the words coming out of his mouth carried the solemn weight of an old soul.

I couldn't help but smile faintly.

Though my physical body belonged to a six-year-old child.

My inner core was that of a twenty-five-year-old adult.

Looking across the entire elementary school division, there were likely very few individuals capable of actually bullying me.

Nonetheless, I still very obediently gave Julian my word.

"Okay."

11

Just like that, I was smoothly adopted by the J family.

Mrs. Judith never once brought up the idea of changing my name. Instead, she warmly told me:

"Clara sounds even more beautiful than a new surname would anyway, so there's no need to alter it."

Perhaps sensing my internal hesitation and timidity, she proactively suggested that I call her Auntie Judith, and address Julian's father as Uncle Joseph.

In reality, I was well aware that the primary reason the family had adopted me was largely to fulfill Julian's burning desire to have a little sister.

Sometimes, I found it quite mind-blowing.

That parents could actually spoil and dote on their child to such an astronomical extent.

Just to provide their son with a playmate, they would willingly visit an orphanage to adopt a daughter.

As expected.

Children raised in immensely wealthy households never suffered from a lack of love.

I stopped obsessing over why the family's choice in this lifetime deviated from the past.

Instead, I simply chalked it up to the butterfly effect.

I had successfully avoided being adopted by the cold family.

But that household was absolutely bound to adopt a young girl regardless.

Exactly as I had anticipated.

Since they didn't adopt me, they simply adopted another girl instead.

In my past life, Chloe’s tragic destiny could be considered set in stone.

As for this lifetime...

12

Not long after I was adopted by the J family.

A massive event shook the entirety of Emerald Hills.

The young daughter of the cold family, who had been abducted by a nanny and missing for nearly a whole year, had finally been found.

That was right.

Chloe had returned.

The entire neighborhood was completely abuzz with the news.

Naturally, the members of the cold family were ecstatic to the point of absolute madness.

Rumor had it that Mrs. Catherine had not only donated an astronomical sum of money to the spiritual master who had predicted everything.

She also insisted on hosting a massive, three-day celebratory party inside their mansion.

Auntie Judith received an invitation to the gathering as well.

Living in the same exclusive luxury estate, it was only natural and polite to extend congratulations when a neighbor experienced such a monumental, joyful event.

Auntie Judith asked if Julian and I wanted to attend.

Recalling my past life, my interactions with Chloe had been utterly disastrous.

Ever since my marriage to Christian, she had treated me almost entirely as a mortal enemy.

As for my feelings toward her, the initial guilt and anxiety had long since evaporated, leaving nothing but absolute indifference.

There was obviously no way I would ever go, so I shook my head decisively.

Julian was similarly devoid of any interest.

"What is the point of going to that? I'd much rather stay home and play chess with Clara."

However, because the two families lived so incredibly close to one another.

Even if I desperately wanted to avoid her, hiding forever was simply an impossibility.

Just a week later, I crossed paths with Chloe at school.

A mere six-year-old Chloe.

Clad in the deep blue school uniform, she was walking alongside Christian.

Perhaps due to the grueling year she spent being trafficked in the rural countryside, she appeared somewhat dark-skinned and quite thin.

Her height was roughly the same as mine.

Her facial features bore a striking resemblance to Mrs. Catherine.

A full forehead, deep-set eyes, and a pair of dark, piercingly bright eyes.

She was undeniably a beautiful little girl.

It seemed that the shoelaces on her feet had come undone.

Chloe cast a downward glance, then puckered her lips, tilting her head to look at her older brother in a deeply spoiled, coquettish manner.

That very Christian—the one who was always cold, arrogant, and habitually kept everyone at a distance.

Beholding this, he knelt down without a shred of hesitation to neatly tie his little sister's shoelaces.

He then stood back up, stroking her small head with pure, unadulterated adoration.

Such a tender and warmly approachable Christian was something only I, someone who had grown up alongside him, could truly understand to be an absolute rarity.

It seemed that only when facing his biological sister would Christian ever display such a gentle and affectionate side.

The bond between the two siblings had always been exceptionally deep.

In my previous life, Chloe had returned home at the age of eighteen.

Upon discovering that his sister had dropped out of school at fourteen, given birth to a child at sixteen, and had a kidney harvested at seventeen.

The immense agony in Christian's eyes had nearly consumed him entirely.

He simply could not accept that his sister's life had been utterly ruined in such a manner.