As Sylvia gracefully descended the stairs, Everly’s gaze performed a forensic scan, starting from the tips of Sylvia’s perfectly manicured toes all the way up to her artfully disheveled hair.
One look at that face, and Everly instantly understanding her family’s fierce protectiveness.
Sylvia was the quintessential “fragile beauty” — a doe-eyed bunny just begging to be protected, even though Everly suspected she was more of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The way Sylvia was looking at her now, all wide-eyed innocence mixed with a hint of terror, practically screamed, “Oh, woe is me, this wild creature is going to devour me!” — undoubtedly aiming to solidify the family’s delusion that Everly was the aggressor.
However, Everly was less concerned with playing the villain and more interested in the theatrical performance that was about to unfold.
To Everly’s utter astonishment, her biological family sprang to their feet with a collective gasp of concern, rushing towards Sylvia as if she were a porcelain doll about to shatter.
Everly couldn’t help but recall her own arrival mere minutes ago, where she’d been greeted with the enthusiasm usually reserved for a door-to-door salesman.
This family is beyond biased.
The real daughter, swapped at birth by a kidnapper, finally returns, and they choose to coddle the criminal’s offspring instead of their own flesh and blood?
Are they genuinely brainless?
Sylas, Felix, Nathan, and Anna, who were halfway to Sylvia, froze mid-stride.
Everly’s thoughts, broadcasted in glorious high-definition, hit them like a rogue wave.
Anger, shame, and a healthy dose of disdain warred on their faces, but they quickly composed themselves, resuming their pilgrimage to the fragile Sylvia.
Charles and Alan, who had also risen but remained rooted to their spots, were frozen in place by Everly’s mental tirade.
Guilt and shame washed over their features, a silent acknowledgment of the uncomfortable truths in Everly’s unfiltered assessment.
Only Magnus remained seated, his expression a carefully constructed blank slate.
Yet, a flicker of something akin to tenderness softened his gaze as Sylvia reached the bottom of the stairs.
Sylvia finally reached the bottom of the stairs, Anna clutching her hand as tears gushed from Sylvia’s eyes like a busted faucet on overdrive.
“Mom… Dad…” she choked out between sobs.
“Now that your real daughter is back… I guess I shouldn’t stay here anymore…
She wouldn’t be happy to have me here…”
Her tear-filled eyes then drifted to Felix, Sylas, and Nathan.
“Brothers, your real sister is here now.
You have to treat her well…
I don’t belong here—I have to go…”
Anna swooped in with all the force of a protective mama bear hugging her prey—or rather, her ‘beloved daughter.’
“Silly girl!
You’ll always be my precious child!
Eighteen years I’ve raised you—there’s no way I’m letting you walk out that door!”
Sylas, his face a mask of frantic concern, rubbed Sylvia’s back.
His eyes, however, darted to Everly, blazing with an accusatory fury, as if Everly herself had penned Sylvia’s dramatic exit speech.
“I never considered her my sister!” Sylas declared, his voice thick with emotion.
“To me, you are my only sister!
That person, even though she’s related to us, she’s not as important as you are!”
Nathan, ever the loyal echo, nodded in vigorous agreement, ruffling Sylvia’s hair as she continued to sob into Anna’s shoulder.
“What Sylas said is true,” Nathan added grimly.
“She…
she’s just an outsider!
Even if she has our DNA, who knows what kind of mischief or chaos she’s cooked up during those years in that orphanage?
Let alone that she—”
Nathan’s impassioned speech screeched to a halt, a sudden, self-imposed gag order kicking in.
He remembered, just in the nick of time, the family’s secret pact to keep their newfound telepathic abilities under wraps.
The words “witch” and “slanderer” for daring to think their mother was a former thug, were bubbling on his tongue, but he swallowed them down with a frustrated gulp.
He couldn’t even get properly angry at Everly, not without exposing their little secret.
Meanwhile, Felix merely nodded, his brow furrowed with genuine concern.
His focus remained solely on Sylvia, the very idea of her departure clearly a source of profound distress.
Everly, the inconvenient biological sister, was simply a threat to Sylvia’s rightful place in their family ecosystem.
Everly, however, was having the time of her life.
The sheer, unadulterated cliché of the unfolding drama was simply delicious.
With a mischievous glint in her eye, she sauntered over to the sofa and plopped down next to Magnus, who stiffened imperceptibly at her sudden proximity.
Not only did she invade his personal space, but she then proceeded to raid the snack tray, pulling out dried fruit as if it were a bag of popcorn at a particularly riveting movie.
Even Alan, who had been about to join the huddle around Sylvia, paused, his jaw dropping slightly at Everly’s utterly unbothered demeanor.
His initial shock quickly morphed into a quiet amusement.
People always called him serious, even eccentric, but this new sister?
She was a whole new level of weird, and frankly, quite interesting.
Unconsciously, he found himself gravitating back to the sofa, settling in surprisingly close to Everly.
Everly arched an eyebrow at Alan.
He was an anomaly, this one.
Well, in the clichéd narratives, there was sometimes one brother who, at first, seemed to be on the real sister’s side, only to inevitably fall back under the fake sister’s tearful, manipulative spell.
She wondered if Alan would follow the predictable script, or if he might, just might, prove to be a refreshing deviation from the norm.
Alan leaned closer, a conspiratorial whisper escaping his lips.
He, usually a man of few words who rarely initiated conversation, found himself inexplicably drawn to this peculiar sister.
She possessed an almost magical quality, capable of broadcasting thoughts and, even more astonishingly, seemed to hold the key to their mother’s closely guarded past.
Though his brothers scoffed at the notion, Alan’s gut told him Everly’s mental musings about their mother’s “thug” days held more than a kernel of truth.
“Everly,” he murmured, his voice soft, “I’m Alan, your fourth brother.
I apologize if I seemed indifferent to your arrival.
It’s just my nature.
I hope you can understand.” Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Despite Everly’s initial confusion and a healthy dose of suspicion, her affection score for Alan instantly shot up by ten points.
Not only was he polite, but he had also offered an apology, and his words subtly conveyed an acceptance of her as his sister.
“It’s perfectly fine, Alan,” she replied, a genuine smile gracing her lips.
“I understand completely.”
Oh, good, good.
I like this brother of mine.
Not only is he the most aesthetically pleasing of the lot, but he also seems to possess a functioning brain cell or two.
Thank goodness!
Otherwise, It would be an utter tragedy if all my male relatives, despite their high-scoring handsome faces, were saddled with low-grade brains and even lower-grade characters.
At least one of them is salvageable!
From this moment forward, I shall protect my precious brother from the contaminating influence of the rest of this family!
Alan’s cheeks and ears flushed a delightful shade of crimson.
He hadn’t expected such a… colorful internal monologue directed at him.
Magnus and Charles, however, were less amused.
Their faces darkened, Charles, in particular, looked ready to unleash a paternal reprimand, but found himself utterly speechless.
How do you scold someone for thoughts you shouldn’t even be hearing?
Fortunately, the rest of the family was still engrossed in their Sylvia-centric drama, well over two meters away, blissfully unaware of Everly’s unfiltered thoughts.
Otherwise, Everly would undoubtedly catch on to their little secret.
Sylas and Nathan, bless their dramatic hearts, would surely erupt in a furious cacophony upon hearing her rather unflattering assessment of their intellect and character.
Sylvia, mid-sob, risked a peek at Everly.
Her eyes widened.
There Everly sat, munching on dried fruit, flanked by Alan and Magnus – two brothers who, by all accounts, should have been rushing to her side.
A pang of confusion, then alarm, shot through Sylvia.
This wasn’t how it usually went!
All her brothers always flocked to her, yet Magnus and Alan were… sitting.
And Alan, the notoriously taciturn one, was actually talking to Everly!
This was an unprecedented crisis.
Her usual tactics weren’t working.
She needed to up the ante.
With a dramatic sniffle, Sylvia extricated herself from Anna’s embrace, practically shoving Sylas, Nathan, and Felix aside.
She then executed a slow-motion, tear-streaked dash towards the front door, her voice a fragile whisper.
“No!
I can’t stay here!
I don’t want Mom’s real daughter to be bothered by my existence!
I’ve taken everything from her for a dozen years; she must hate me!”
Sylas lunged forward, snagging Sylvia’s arm just as she reached the threshold.
“Sylvia, don’t be rash!” he pleaded, his voice laced with desperation.
“No one is going to kick you out!
If that person doesn’t want you in this house, she is the one who should get out of here!”
He punctuated his declaration with another furious glare in Everly’s direction.
But she merely met his gaze with sparkling eyes, popping another piece of dried mango into her mouth.
The villainess role suited her just fine; the drama was simply too good to miss.
“My daughter…
I will never let you leave this house…” Anna chimed in, rushing to Sylvia’s side.
She, too, shot a resentful look at Everly, as if Everly had personally orchestrated this entire emotional hostage situation.
Anna still fumed, her carefully constructed world crumbling around her.
Everly’s inconvenient knowledge of her past, coupled with her family’s newfound telepathic eavesdropping skills, meant her secrets were spectacularly, embarrassingly public.
And now, her anger spiked further, fueled by the sight of her lovingly raised daughter, Sylvia, feeling threatened by Everly’s mere existence.
This, in turn, made Anna’s bias towards Sylvia less of a subtle lean and more of a full-blown, undeniable shove.
“Everly,” Anna snapped, her voice tight with indignation, “it’s not fair to blame Sylvia for all of this!
The person who did all that is indeed the woman who gave birth to Sylvia, but that doesn’t mean Sylvia has to bear her mother’s mistakes!”
Everly, who had been perfectly content to observe the unfolding melodrama from her snack-laden perch, realized she’d been handed the microphone.
And when given a stage, one simply must perform.
“The cruel woman who swapped me out like I was a pair of shoes so that her precious baby could live a life of luxury?
And then tossed me into an orphanage?
Oh, it’s undeniably her mother’s fault.
There’s no denying that.”
Everly’s voice, though calm, cut through the tension like a freshly sharpened knife.
“And yet, I haven’t uttered a single word to Sylvia, nor have I ever blamed her.
She’s the one creating this entire melodrama, acting like a fragile, wounded bird when in reality, she’s never known hardship after living as me.
Even I, who’ve endured life without parents or money, am embarrassed by her over-the-top theatrics.
Besides, have you ever heard me complain about wanting your beloved Sylvia to leave?
I just arrived, and you’re already trying to paint me as the villain?”
The weight of Everly’s words hung heavy in the air, a brief moment of guilt flickering across their hearts.
She wriggled free from Sylas’s grasp, her voice a theatrical lament.
“I’m sorry…
my mother is indeed a great sinner, Everly…” she wailed, “You will definitely keep remembering your hatred for her every time you see me…
That’s why I’m going to make up for it by leaving this house so that you don’t feel that hatred in your heart anymore!”
But before anyone could react, Sylvia spun on her heel and took off running towards the stairs.
“Or perhaps it would be better if I just…
died!
That way, everyone will be happy…
Everly has already suffered so much because of me; let my death finally end her pain!”
Charles launched himself after Sylvia like a man possessed while Magnus, who had been rooted to the sofa, finally sprang to his feet.
But just as Sylvia reached the first step, Everly’s voice, calm and clear, cut through the chaos.
“Wait!”
Sylvia, naturally, ignored Everly, her dramatic momentum carrying her upwards.
But Everly’s next words, delivered with the casual air of a seasoned professional, brought Sylvia’s feet—once flying up the stairs with all the grace of a runaway bride, now faltered.
Her body halted mid-stride as if caught in an invisible net.
“If you intend to jump from the second floor, it might not be enough.
You’ll likely just break some bones and end up suffering even more—I know this because I’ve fallen from that very same height myself.”
A pause so pregnant it could have given birth to triplets filled every corner of the room before Everly continued.
“But if you’re serious about wanting to die quickly,” she added nonchalantly while reaching for another piece of dried fruit, “you should find yourself a nice tall building at least ten stories high.”
The room plunged into an immediate, stunned silence, quickly followed by a chorus of horrified gasps and furious accusations.
“You!
You evil witch!
You want Sylvia to die?!”
Nathan roared, his face contorted in a mask of pure rage.
He looked as if he wanted to physically devour Everly on the spot.
“She truly doesn’t deserve to be a Tang family child…”
Felix muttered, his voice dripping with disdain as he chased after Sylvia.
With surprising agility, he managed to catch both of her shoulders just as she was about to take another step up the stairs.
“ENOUGH!”
Charles’s voice, usually calm and measured, boomed through the now silent living room.
His gaze, cold and calculating, fixed on Everly.
“You shut up.
You just came here, and you’re already causing trouble.”
He then turned to Felix and Sylvia.
“Felix, take Sylvia to her room.
Wife, you go with them too.”
Anna, along with Nathan and Sylas, followed Felix and Sylvia upstairs, each shooting a venomous glare at Everly as they ascended.
Everly, in turn, nearly choked on her dried fruit, responding with an exaggerated eye-roll.
Honestly, the collective brainpower of this family is truly baffling.
Am I the one causing trouble?
I’ve been sitting here, eating my snacks like a perfectly innocent, albeit highly entertained, angel.
I even offered Sylvia practical, life-saving advice!
Besides, are they truly so blind?
Their ‘beloved’ Sylvia is putting on a performance worthy of an Oscar.
Who, in their right mind, contemplating self-termination, announces it with such dramatic flair?
And if she genuinely wanted to leave, why no luggage?
It’s glaringly obvious she knows her every move will be intercepted.
My family’s intelligence truly is… special.
Alan, who had been on the verge of following the others, paused.
Everly’s mental monologue, though harsh, resonated with an uncomfortable truth.
He replayed the scene in his mind, and a slow, dawning realization crept over him.
The entire spectacle…
it did look suspiciously like a charade.
Meanwhile, Magnus remained rooted to the spot, his brow furrowed in a silent, contemplative stare at Everly.
The sole reason he’d stay put was to test this newfound ability to read her mind.
So, despite his initial urge to go over to Sylvia, he was stuck like a fly in honey.
From his keen observations, he’d managed to deduce that they could only catch Everly’s thoughts from a specific distance.
After all, his hot-tempered brothers weren’t flying off the handle, which meant they were too far away to hear her mental musings.
And then there was the fact that Everly herself didn’t seem to have a clue about this mind-reading business, even though she appeared to sense that something was amiss, given her random thought about…
side effect?
Despite seething at Everly’s remarks to Sylvia and choosing to turn a blind eye to her claims that Sylvia was just putting on an act, his curiosity about this peculiar sister of his was stronger than a bull in a china shop.
Before he even realized what he was doing, his hand had instinctively inched closer to Everly’s face.
Everly caught his movement out of the corner of her eye, immediately had a thought that echoed through the room, clear as a bell to the still-present telepaths:
Oh my goodness!
Another juicy piece of gossip!!