I was the true heiress, my identity swapped. Five years after giving birth out of wedlock, my biological parents finally came to claim me. They told me I had to fulfill an engagement with the Maxwell family’s scion. I brought my daughter home, and the fake heiress, Charlotte, sneered, “Sister actually brought this burden back? How shameless!” Blake Maxwell, the family scion, publicly broke off our engagement, scoffing, “Make me raise someone else’s bastard? Do you even deserve that?” I didn’t say a word, just lowered my head and offered my daughter a comforting smile. My daughter wasn’t some bastard. She was the true heir of the Maxwell family. 0The atmosphere in the Hayes family banquet hall was dead silent. All the friends and relatives present stared at my daughter and me. This evening’s banquet was supposed to be a special event to welcome me home. But the moment I walked in with my daughter, before I could even speak, the fake heiress, Charlotte, derailed the whole topic with that single word: “bastard.” Blake Maxwell, the scion of the Maxwell family – the wealthiest family in the city – felt publicly humiliated. His face was thunderous as he broke off the engagement, then stormed out. He left behind a hall full of guests, buzzing with whispers. “What a low-class mess. I can’t believe the Hayes family would make such a spectacle of bringing her back. Don’t they have any shame?” Only Blake Maxwell’s aunt, Eleanor Maxwell, smiled and tried to smooth things over. “Blake had too much to drink; he didn’t mean any of that. How could a childhood betrothal between the Maxwell and Hayes families just be called off? I’ll make sure Blake comes to apologize tomorrow once he’s sober.” My father’s humiliated expression finally eased a bit. After the guests left, his face immediately darkened. He raised his hand and slapped me across the face. “What did I tell you yesterday?” “I told you not to bring that little brat home, or you wouldn’t be allowed through this door yourself. We’re lucky Mr. Maxwell was delayed tonight and didn’t make it to the banquet. Otherwise, with the spectacle you made, how would the Hayes family ever explain this to him?!” The Mr. Maxwell my father spoke of was Alexander Maxwell, the current head of the Maxwell family. Alex Maxwell was middle-aged and unmarried, with a naturally low sperm count. The chances of him having children in this lifetime were next to none. His nephew, Blake Maxwell, was expected to inherit the Maxwell family’s billions if nothing went wrong. So, when my mother found out that the daughter she’d raised for twenty-five years, Charlotte Hayes, was not her biological child, she desperately sought me out, her true daughter. And she forced my father to agree to my marriage into the Maxwell family. All to make up for the love I’d missed over the years. 0
Seeing my father’s rage, my mother immediately stepped in front of my daughter and me, vehemently arguing, “Aria is our biological daughter, and her daughter is your own flesh and blood! How can you call your own granddaughter a mongrel?” But my father refused to acknowledge my daughter. He eyed us with disgust. “You shameless wretch, having a child out of wedlock! You’ve completely disgraced the Hayes family. I think Charlotte should go through with this marriage instead of you.” With that, he turned and walked away. “Dad, don’t be angry; it’s bad for your health. Sister didn’t mean to—” Charlotte quickly followed him, cooing at my father while not forgetting to turn back and give me a smug smile. My mother watched her, spitting in disgust, and cursed under her breath, “That little bitch, Charlotte, she’s just like her birth mother—ungrateful vipers, both of them.” Charlotte’s birth mother was a college student my mother had once sponsored. After graduating, Charlotte’s mother not only showed no gratitude but took the opportunity to seduce my father, becoming his mistress he kept on the side. Later, she and my mother became pregnant at the same time and gave birth to daughters on the same day. While my mother was unconscious after childbirth, she bribed a nurse at the hospital and swapped me and Charlotte. Charlotte became the pampered heiress, having everything she ever wanted since childhood. As for me, Charlotte’s mother left me to be raised in a remote fishing village, hard to reach and cut off from the outside world. I didn’t even finish college. It wasn’t until a month ago that my mother learned the truth and found me. “But your father is right,” my mother’s tone softened slightly, her gaze lingering subtly on my daughter. She sighed wistfully, “You really shouldn’t have brought the child home. And it’s lucky Alex Maxwell didn’t come; otherwise, who knows how we would have salvaged tonight.” As the head of the Maxwell family, Alex Maxwell was known for being cold and ruthless. My act of bringing my daughter home tonight was undoubtedly a slap in the Maxwell family’s face. If Alex Maxwell had been present, he wouldn’t have let it slide so easily. But precisely because I knew he would be attending the banquet, I decided at the last minute to bring my daughter. I covered my left cheek, still stinging from my father’s slap, and looked at Luna’s eyes, identical to Alex Maxwell’s. I whispered, “Mom, if Alex Maxwell had been here tonight, I wouldn’t have gotten this slap. Maybe Dad would even be trying to butter us up, Luna and me.” 0
Six years ago, Alex Maxwell went deep-sea fishing, got caught in a storm, and his yacht capsized. He was swept into the waves, drifted to the fishing village, and was unconscious. I was the one who rescued him and brought him home. But when he woke up, he had lost his memory; he couldn’t remember who he was. I took him to the nearest town to report it to the police, get his fingerprints and DNA taken, and put up missing person posters, but there was no result. The countryside was cut off, and medical care wasn’t great. Alex Maxwell’s amnesia didn’t get better after several visits to the town hospital, and I didn’t have enough money to take him to a big city to see a brain specialist. He had no money and couldn’t find his family, so he stayed with me in the fishing village. Life in the fishing village was simple and fulfilling. Alex Maxwell was tall and handsome, and his temper was incredibly gentle. No matter what I asked him to do, he never complained. As time passed, the villagers would joke that I had picked up a capable and handsome husband. And as we spent every day together, we gradually fell in love. A year later, just as we promised ourselves to each other, he suddenly recovered a small segment of his memory. He remembered his name and his home address. He said he had to go back to find his family, then return with them for our wedding. Before he left, Alex Maxwell planted a peach tree outside my house. He said, “This peach tree… it’s a promise, Aria. A symbol of our future home, our family. Before it blooms, I’ll be back. Aria, wait for me.” But spring came and went, then came again. I stood under the peach tree, waiting for five years, but Alex Maxwell never returned. It wasn’t until a month ago that I found out the man I had been waiting for so long was Alexander Maxwell, the powerful head of the Maxwell family in the city. And I, once recognized by the Hayes family, was to marry Blake Maxwell, Alex’s nephew, as the Hayes family heiress. I didn’t want to marry Blake Maxwell. That’s why I brought my daughter back to the Hayes family, to make a public appearance. She was my and Alex Maxwell’s daughter, my only comfort during those five long, quiet years of waiting. I would never allow her to be a secret, a hidden existence. And I would certainly never let anyone call her a “bastard” or a “mongrel.” I knelt down, wrapped my arms around my daughter, and gently soothed her. “Don’t be scared, Luna. Mommy will take you to find Daddy. We’ll see Daddy very soon.” 0
The day after I returned to the Hayes family, news of my giving birth out of wedlock spread throughout the city, at Charlotte’s instigation. Not only did all our friends and relatives know, but there were countless gossip posts online too. My father, furious that I had disgraced the Hayes family, ordered me to move out of the Hayes mansion with my daughter. My mother tried to stop him. “Aria is your daughter too. She just came home; how can you bear to kick her out?” But Charlotte interjected, instigating, “Sister’s actions last night, bringing that bastard home, already angered the Maxwell family. This morning, Maxwell Group postponed their partnership with our family. If Dad keeps Sister at home, our family business will be ruined. Mom, you don’t want to see the Hayes family go bankrupt, do you?” The Hayes family’s finances were never as strong as the Maxwells’, and in recent years, their investments had consistently failed, losing billions. If not for the Maxwell family’s support, they would have declared bankruptcy long ago. Normally, my mother might have listened to Charlotte’s words and endured it for the sake of the Hayes family. But ever since she learned Charlotte wasn’t her biological daughter, she had come to resent my father and Charlotte, almost wishing the Hayes family would go bankrupt sooner. Just to make that father and daughter pair experience the same hardship I had endured. “Don’t call me Mom, I’m not your mom!” My mother shot Charlotte a disgusted glance, then stared directly at my father. “Are you really going to abandon your own flesh and blood, our biological daughter, and kick her out of the house?” My father’s face was indifferent. “I have no choice. It’s her fault for being disobedient and insisting on bringing that little mongrel home. If you keep nagging, then pack your bags and go with her, and that little mongrel too.” My mother froze, her eyes wide with disbelief, as if she had completely given up on my father. Finally, she calmly nodded. “Fine. Don’t regret this.” That very day, my mother took me and my daughter and moved out of the Hayes family home, into a hotel. Though my mother seemed decisively resolute, she couldn’t help but be heartbroken by my father’s cold indifference. That night, she developed a high fever. I cared for her at the hotel for two days, but seeing no signs of improvement, I took her to the hospital. Only when I was handling the admission procedures did I discover my father had frozen my mother’s bank card. Living in that small fishing village all these years, and raising my daughter alone, I had only saved a few thousand dollars. After barely covering the hospital deposit and the hotel fees, I had very little money left. I had no choice but to take my daughter and seek out the Maxwell family. Unexpectedly, I ran into Charlotte and Blake Maxwell right at the Maxwell family gates.
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