Part 2
### Chapter 1: Chapter 1
A contemporary family drama with dark comedy, slow-burn romance, switched-at-birth mystery, wealthy-family conflict, and immediate consequences.
At twenty-four, Lin Anya discovers she was switched at birth—and that her biological family is wealthy enough to believe everyone wants what they have.
The Shengs expect a tearful reunion. They expect gratitude, jealousy, and a desperate fight for their affection.
Anya wants lunch.
Practical, sarcastic, and impossible to embarrass, she has no interest in competing with Sheng Lili, the beloved daughter raised in her place. Her rule is simple: treat her well, and she will do the same. Deliberately hurt her, and she will respond immediately.
But Lili cannot tolerate a rival who refuses to compete. Her schemes grow from tearful accusations to planted evidence and public traps designed to make Anya look cruel.
Meanwhile, charming heir Lu Caiyun approaches Anya because of an arrogant bet, convinced he can make her fall for him. Instead, Anya remains exactly herself—and Caiyun becomes the one who softens.
Then Anya discovers the hospital switch may not have remained an innocent mistake. Someone knew the truth years ago and allowed two daughters, two mothers, and an entire family to live inside a lie.
Anya did not return for revenge or to beg for love.
She came peacefully.
Unfortunately, the Sheng family refused to leave her that way.
No rebirth. No ninety-nine chances. No suffering in silence.
Complete Chapters 30
Rating 5.0 ( 7 reviews ) Age Rating 16+
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Three Cars
The Sheng family sent three cars to collect Lin Anya.
The number 47 stopped two streets from her apartment, crossed the river without changing routes, and left her a ten-minute walk from the Sheng estate. It cost two coins. Anya understood all of these things.
The Sheng family’s arrangements were less clear.
At eleven that morning, a driver had called the restaurant and asked the manager to send Miss Sheng outside. A second driver had gone to Anya’s apartment after she had already left for work. A third had waited at the university she had graduated from two years earlier, apparently hoping education was a place people remained until collected by wealthier relatives.
Anya had finished her shift, changed out of her uniform, and walked to the bus stop.
She was not avoiding them. They simply kept going to places where she was not.
The bus smelled faintly of warm vinyl, rain-damp coats, and the scallion pancakes a schoolboy was eating three rows ahead. Anya stood for the first twelve minutes, one hand looped around an overhead strap while the city moved past the windows in grey afternoon light.
Her phone vibrated inside her worn leather bag.
UNKNOWN DRIVER, said the screen.
The message that followed said:
Miss Sheng, please advise your present location.
Anya looked at the name for several seconds.
The reply arrived almost immediately.
Please remain where you are. We will collect you.
Remaining where she was would have required asking the driver to stop moving. That seemed excessive even for the Sheng family.
At the next interchange, a woman carrying grocery bags stood. Anya took the empty seat and rested her canvas tote on her knees. Inside were a clean work shirt, a paperback with a bent spine, her charger, and the DNA report that had rearranged her family eight days earlier without changing a single person she loved.
The report used the phrase probability of biological maternity .
It did not mention who had packed her school lunches, worked overtime to pay for braces, or stayed awake beside her during a fever when she was nine.
It did not mention love at all.
The bus climbed toward the northern district, where apartment blocks thinned into walled estates. Storefronts disappeared. Sidewalks widened and emptied, apparently because people with large houses had nowhere to walk.
Anya got off at the final stop.
A fruit seller beside the station was packing away his crates. Four peaches remained in a shallow wooden box, their skins bruised in small places but still fragrant.
“Last ones,” he said. “Half price.”
By the time the Shengs discovered that all three cars had failed, she was standing outside their front gate with the peach in one hand and her cracked phone in the other.
The gate was taller than the building where she rented her apartment. Black iron spears rose above pale stone walls. A camera turned toward her with a small mechanical sound.
The guard stepped out of the booth.
His gaze moved from her old sneakers to the oversized jacket, the canvas tote, and finally her face.
“Deliveries use the east entrance.”
Anya took another bite of peach. Juice touched her thumb.
The guard frowned. “Then your name?”
Only slightly, but Anya had spent six years carrying plates between tables. She knew the exact look people wore when they had just realized they might have been rude to someone important.
His shoulders straightened. “Miss Sheng, I apologize. We were expecting—”
“My name is Lin Anya.” She wiped the peach juice against a folded napkin. “You asked.”
The gates opened without a sound.
The house waited at the end of a long drive lined with gingko trees. Pale stone. Three floors. Too many windows. The western glass reflected a sky turning silver before rain.
It took Anya four minutes to walk from the gate to the front steps. The house grew larger as she approached, which seemed unnecessary.
Two stone lions guarded the entrance with the solemnity of creatures who had never paid rent.
A black sedan swept past her and stopped beneath the portico.
The rear door opened before the driver reached it. A tall man in a charcoal suit stepped out, glanced toward the entrance, then noticed Anya halfway up the drive.
He had the severe eyebrows of the man in the investigator’s photographs. Her biological father’s eyebrows, apparently. An unfortunate inheritance.
He came toward her with the brisk, irritated stride of someone accustomed to meetings beginning when he entered the room. His tie was still straight. His silver watch caught the dull afternoon light.
His mouth tightened. “Your eldest brother.”
His gaze dropped to her tote. “Where is your luggage?”
Anya looked past him at the house, then back at his face.
“I’ve been here forty seconds.”
“Mother told you to bring your things.”
“She told me to come for lunch.”
Rui took out his phone, checked a message, and frowned as though the device had personally betrayed him.
“You were supposed to wait at the restaurant.”
Anya held up her cracked phone. “So could the three drivers.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Wind moved through the gingko leaves. Somewhere beyond the wall, thunder rolled too far away to be urgent.
Then the front doors opened and a young woman hurried down the steps.
She was beautiful in the careful way of an expensive room: every color soft, every detail precisely placed. Her cream dress moved around her knees. Chestnut curls lay over one shoulder, and pearls shone at her ears.
She passed Rui and stopped a few feet from Anya.
Impressive, Anya thought. They had not even said hello.
She pointed at her own chest. “Me?”
The girl’s lashes trembled. “I’m Sheng Lili.”
The investigator had provided a photograph. The photograph had not conveyed how fragile Lili looked while standing perfectly upright in shoes that probably cost more than Anya’s monthly rent.
Lili stepped closer, then stopped at exactly the distance where an embrace could be offered without being attempted.
“I’ve wanted to meet you for so long.”
“The test came back eight days ago.”
Something flickered across Lili’s face and vanished beneath a small, brave smile.
Behind her, Rui’s expression hardened.
Anya rubbed the fuzz from the peach with her thumb. Apparently eight days had been the wrong answer.
Lili looked at the tote. “You didn’t bring your belongings?”
“But you’re staying, aren’t you?”
Rui stepped in. “Can we discuss this inside instead of performing on the driveway?”
Anya looked around. The guard had returned to his booth. The sedan driver was studying the windshield with unusual concentration. A woman in a grey uniform stood between the open doors.
“Who’s performing?” Anya asked.
Inside, the air was cool enough to raise gooseflesh along her arms. The entrance hall smelled of beeswax, cut flowers, and the faint mineral scent that arrived before rain. Light from the chandelier fractured across the polished marble floor. A staircase curved toward the second level, wide enough for six people to descend while avoiding one another emotionally.
The woman in grey approached and held out her hand for Anya’s tote.
The woman blinked, then smiled. “Of course, Miss Lin. I’m Qiao Fen, the housekeeper.”
“Thank you, Auntie Qiao. Where should I put this?”
Qiao Fen took it with both hands, as if Anya had entrusted her with a minor family heirloom. “I’ll dispose of it.”
Lili watched the exchange. So did Rui.
Anya wondered which rule she had broken.
They passed a console table carrying a bowl of white peonies, then crossed a sitting room where no one appeared to have sat in years. The pale sofas were arranged around a low table with the exact symmetry of a furniture catalogue.
Anya had seen her face before—first in the investigator’s file, then in the mirror afterward.
Madam Sheng was fifty-two and beautiful, with dark hair pinned at the nape of her neck and posture that made the room seem untidy around her. A white handkerchief had been folded into one hand so tightly that the embroidered corner disappeared between her fingers.
For one strange second, nobody moved.
Anya saw her own eyes in the woman’s face. Not the shape. The way they narrowed when uncertain. The small line between the brows when she wanted more information than she had been given.
The recognition landed lower than thought, somewhere behind Anya’s ribs.
The resemblance did not feel like love. It felt like finding handwriting that matched hers in a book she had never opened.
“Anya.” Her voice broke on the second syllable.
Anya saw the embrace forming too late to prevent it politely.
The woman smelled faintly of sandalwood. Her arms were rigid around Anya’s shoulders, trembling with an emotion too large and too private to belong to both of them.
She even patted Madam Sheng once between the shoulder blades.
After several seconds, breathing became inconvenient.
Madam Sheng released her as though burned. “I’m sorry. I only—when I saw you—”
“It’s fine.” Anya adjusted her jacket. “Just warn me next time.”
Pain passed over the woman’s face.
They had known each other for less than a minute, and already Anya had disappointed her.
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### Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Lili moved to Madam Sheng’s side and touched her arm. “Mother, don’t be upset. Sister isn’t used to us yet.”
The words were gentle. The arrangement was not.
Lili stood beside Madam Sheng with the ease of long practice, comforting her for something Anya had done. Madam Sheng covered Lili’s hand with her own.
She also saw Madam Sheng realize she had seen it.
This, Anya suspected, was what lunch was actually for.
“Please sit,” Madam Sheng said.
Tea waited on a low table. Steam lifted from a porcelain pot painted with blue cranes. Beside it stood a glass bowl filled with cherries so dark they were almost black.
Anya chose the chair nearest the bowl.
Rui sat opposite her. Lili and Madam Sheng took the sofa. Their knees angled toward each other without conscious decision.
There was one absent biological father, one absent younger brother, and enough silence for both of them.
Rain began against the tall windows in soft, widely spaced drops.
Madam Sheng folded and unfolded the handkerchief. “Your father was called away to an important meeting.”
“Then it must have been important.”
“You don’t have to pretend you aren’t disappointed,” Lili said softly.
Anya took a cherry. Its skin was cold and taut beneath her fingers.
Rui leaned forward. “Lili is trying to make you feel welcome.”
“You have an unusual way of showing it.”
Anya looked down at herself. “Should I clap?”
“Anya,” Madam Sheng said, the first edge entering her voice. “Your brother is only asking you to make an effort.”
She had been in the house for nine minutes. She had taken the bus, walked through the gate, allowed a stranger to embrace her, and answered every question placed before her. Somehow, effort had already become a debt she owed.
She dropped the cherry stone onto the porcelain dish.
Madam Sheng hesitated. “We understand this is difficult for you.”
“As if none of this matters.” Madam Sheng’s fingers tightened around the handkerchief. “We are your family.”
Rui noticed. “Do you need to keep emphasizing that?”
Anya looked at him. “The biology is why I’m here.”
“You’re here because Mother has spent twenty-four years without her real daughter.”
The word real landed in the center of the room.
Madam Sheng turned toward him. “Rui.”
“What?” He looked impatient now, angry at a problem of his own construction. “We can’t avoid the truth forever.”
Lili stood so quickly that tea trembled in her cup and spilled across the saucer.
She crossed the room with one hand near her mouth.
Madam Sheng rose after her. “Lili—”
At the doorway, Lili stopped. A tear slid down her cheek.
It was, Anya had to admit, an excellent tear.
“I knew this would happen,” Lili whispered. “I knew that once Sister came home, I would become the extra one.”
Madam Sheng’s face crumpled. She took a step toward her.
Rui stood too. His voice softened instantly. “Nobody said that.”
“You called her the real daughter.”
Lili looked at Anya. “I’m not trying to take your place.”
Anya reached for another cherry.
“You said you weren’t trying to take my place.” Anya ate the cherry. “I said good.”
“She needs reassurance,” Rui said.
Anya looked at Lili. “About what?”
Lili’s voice shook. “That you don’t hate me.”
Anya considered the rain, the absent lunch, and the bowl that had begun with twenty-three cherries.
Rui struck the table with his palm.
The cups jumped. Tea spilled into the saucer and ran beneath the porcelain pot.
Anya’s hand stopped halfway to the bowl.
She looked at the spreading tea, then at Rui.
“Hit the table while I’m eating.”
“Then stop treating this like a joke.”
“About crying?” Anya set down the cherry. “Not automatically.”
Lili made a small, wounded sound.
Madam Sheng said his name, but without enough force to stop anything. He stood in front of Anya’s chair and held out his hand.
Anya glanced at it beside her. “Why?”
“You’re going to apologize to Lili. Then you’re going to call whoever filled your head with this attitude and tell them you’ll be staying here.”
Rui’s fingers closed around empty air.
“Do not touch my things,” she said.
Anya caught his wrist below the watch.
Six months earlier, after a drunk customer had followed her coworker to the bus stop, the restaurant manager had paid for one late-shift safety class. Anya remembered almost none of it.
She remembered how to break a wrist grip.
She remembered not to let a larger person control the distance.
Rui pulled toward himself. Anya stepped sideways instead of resisting, turned his wrist only as far as the joint permitted, and drove the heel of her palm against his upper arm.
His forward momentum carried him into the arm of the sofa.
Nothing broke. Nothing even made an interesting sound. He was upright one second and bent awkwardly the next, one hand braced against upholstery.
Rui straightened, his face burning. “What is wrong with you?”
He stepped toward her and seized her shoulder.
Anya knocked his hand away hard enough to sting both of them.
“Do that again,” she said, “and I leave.”
“You cannot threaten me in my house.”
“That wasn’t a threat. It was travel information.”
Madam Sheng came between them at last. “Rui, stop.”
He stared past her at Anya. His suit was wrinkled at one shoulder. He looked less injured than astonished, which was reasonable. Men his size rarely expected consequences to arrive before they had finished being threatening.
Anya picked up her phone and slid it into her tote.
Madam Sheng looked at her as if she were the only person in the room whose conduct required explanation.
Anya pointed toward the far side of the room.
His voice rose. “You don’t give orders in this house.”
This time Madam Sheng’s voice cracked like a snapped thread.
Rain struck the windows more heavily now. The chandelier light trembled in every dark pane.
Anya put the strap of her tote over her shoulder. Lunch no longer seemed likely, and the cherries were not good enough to justify another conversation.
Madam Sheng found her voice. “Where are you going?”
Anya looked back at the spilled tea, Lili’s perfect tear, Rui’s clenched hands, and finally the woman who had hugged her before asking what she was willing to endure.
“No,” she said. “This is where my relatives live.”
Madam Sheng went pale. “You cannot leave whenever something becomes uncomfortable.”
“Anya, wait. We can begin again.”
Hope rose too quickly on Madam Sheng’s face.
“We already began,” Anya said. “You just didn’t like the result.”
She walked through the silent hall. Auntie Qiao stood near the entrance, pretending to adjust a vase that did not require adjustment.
“Miss Lin,” she murmured, opening the door.
Outside, rain ticked against the portico roof. The stone lions had darkened beneath the water.
Behind her, the front door opened again.
She expected Rui. Instead Lili’s voice floated down the steps.
Lili stood alone beneath the enormous doorway. The tears had stopped. Without them, her face looked sharper.
“You embarrassed him,” she said.
Lili studied her. Something new entered her expression—not hatred yet, but the first cold outline of it.
“They won’t accept you if you behave like this.”
Anya adjusted the tote on her shoulder.
“Then they shouldn’t have spent so much money finding me.”
Rain gathered in her hair and darkened the shoulders of her jacket.
“You only get one family,” Lili called after her.
That was the sort of sentence people used when they wanted the word family to finish an argument their behavior could not win.
At the gate, her phone began to ring.
The screen showed her mother’s name—not Madam Sheng, but the woman who had packed sliced peaches into Anya’s school lunches, worked twelve-hour shifts without forgetting birthdays, and threatened to haunt her if she ever skipped breakfast again.
Anya looked back at the mansion. Rui had appeared in the doorway beside Lili. Even from this distance, he looked furious. Madam Sheng stood farther inside, one white handkerchief pressed against her mouth.
Anya watched Rui start down the steps.
She ended the call, stepped through the gate, and let it close behind her.
The bus shelter had a metal roof and one dry seat. Anya sat, took the DNA report from her tote, and looked at the official names printed above hers.
Biological mother. Biological father.
The paper was dry despite the rain.
Anya folded it once and returned it to the bag.
It rang until the screen went dark.
If the Sheng family wanted a second, they would have to behave better during it.
Authors can write and upload their manuscripts on Inkit for free and writers retain 100% of their copyrights while writing on Inkitt
Readers can read all books for free, without any ads and give the authors feedback.
Books that perform well based on their reader engagement are published on our Galatea app.
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