Chapter 5

With trembling hands, my parents pulled out an old photograph. It was a picture of me at the orphanage.

Seeing Sharon's frown deepen, Dad quickly assured her, "We're not here to ask him for money. Quite the opposite. We're here to make it up to him.

"I'm the chairman of a Global 500 company. Everything I have will be his someday. I've even bought him a villa and a luxury car in Ogland."

David froze for a moment. Then, he took Sharon's hand and murmured, "I'm so jealous of Kyle. He gets to find his biological parents. Unlike me, my parents died years ago. I don't have any family left."

Tears glistened in his eyes, breaking Sharon's heart.

She suddenly took him upstairs and took the gold pendant out. After a moment of hesitation, she gritted her teeth and finally put it around David's neck.

"Remember, you were separated from your family when you were five years old," she reminded him.

David swallowed hard, trying to hide his excitement. "If I pretended to be Kyle and claimed his parents as my own, he'd be angry, wouldn't he? Maybe I shouldn't—"

Sharon replied firmly, "He doesn't have to know. You need a family more than he does."

When they came back downstairs, Sharon led David over to my parents and said with a calm expression, "Kyle isn't here. I'm his wife. He's been living under David's identity all these years. David is your biological son."

My parents looked uneasy. "Maybe we should get a DNA test?"

David didn't panic. Instead, he yanked the pendant from his neck and threw it onto the floor.

His eyes were bloodshot. "When I was five years old, I got separated from my parents in Jasdon and was taken in by a foreign couple. But I always knew my parents lived in Jasdon.

"Other kids called me an orphan, and people bullied me. But none of that mattered. All I wanted was to go back to Jasdon and ask my parents if they'd really abandoned me!

"I studied like crazy and got into Westbridge for my PhD. I thought that would finally prove my worth. But I was wrong. If I'd known you wouldn't believe me, I wouldn't want parents like you anyway!"

What an act. David's story was so detailed and convincing that my parents broke down in tears and pulled him into their arms.

Mom even tore up the childhood photo of me and said, "My son, you're a PhD student at Westbridge University? I'm a professor there!

"To think you went through all that on your own and still made something of yourself. Maybe we were always meant to find each other. I'll never doubt you again."

I felt like crying, but no tears came. It felt like something inside me was being pierced a thousand times over.

Dad, Mom, I was right here.

If I'd managed to get into Westbridge three years ago, would everything have turned out differently?

Now, they were right in front of me, yet I could never reach them.

That night, Sharon couldn't sleep. She kept opening our chat, typing and deleting messages.

"I'm sorry, Kyle. Your parents came looking for you, but David needs a family more than you do. You still have me."

She deleted the message, thought for a moment, and then started typing again.

"Stop throwing a tantrum. I'll have Adam pick you up tomorrow. I won't stop you from pursuing your PhD anymore. I'll even buy you a lab."

She read it over a few times before hitting send.

After waiting two minutes with no reply, she grew anxious and cursed, "Damn you, Kyle! You used to reply right away. Such a temper."

But I was dead. I couldn't reply to her anymore.

Afterward, she walked straight toward me, making my heart skip a beat.

She walked right past me and crouched down to dig through the trash. She was always a neat freak, yet now she was carefully taping my torn dissertation back together, piece by piece.

At 4:00 am, she called Adam.

"Did you see the file I sent you? Print me a new copy. And this gold pendant—find someone who can make a replica. Get it done right now!"