Chapter 4

“I am not trying to interfere with your friendship. I only hope you stay vigilant.”

“Dad, I know.”

I stayed quiet for a moment before I continued with steady resolve, “She never treated me as a real friend.

“You do not need to show her any mercy for my sake. Once you find evidence of her father’s embezzlement, let everything take the proper route.”

Dad instructed Peter to begin investigating Vicky’s father’s misuse of company funds.

My biggest worry, which was my biological father’s health, had already eased for the moment.

It was time for me to consider our household income, as we could not rely on our savings forever.

I decided to humbly seek advice from my experienced foster father and Peter.

They fully supported me. The two cunning veterans helped me work through one practical idea after another.

In the end, I gritted my teeth and I poured all my allowance into opening a small guesthouse near a newly developed tourist area.

I pulled my biological parents along to learn everything with me, from site selection to basic management.

The three of us worked together with enthusiasm as we threw ourselves into the guesthouse business.

We supervised renovations and bought furniture.

From morning until night, we rolled up our sleeves and worked hard.

My biological father swept the courtyard in silence. The loneliness he had carried when we returned from the hospital began to fade bit by bit.

Vicky had tried to visit me to continue pretending like she was my friend, yet I did not bother to humor her and asked her directly what she wanted.

Her teeth clenched in anger as she finally tore off her mask. “Rachel, you are only a false daughter, so what gives you the right to act superior in front of me?

“If it were not for getting closer to Peter, who would want to be your friend? I have had enough of following behind you all these years!”

Lost in her own fantasies, Vicky smiled with unbearable pride as if she had already married into a wealthy family and become part of ours.

She claimed Peter had asked her out for movies and afternoon tea for days, and that his confession was only a matter of time.

She even said that once she married into the family, the first thing she would do was throw me, the false daughter, out of the house.

“Oh, then I hope you succeed.”

I rubbed my nose because I had nothing left to say. I wondered if I had a few screws loose in my previous life.

How else could I have been friends with someone like her for so many years?

There were still many things I needed to do, so I stopped wasting energy on Vicky and I focused on my mission to make money.

After three busy and fulfilling months, my guesthouse finally opened.

Its main themes were “comfort” and “slow living.”

I never expected fortune to fall from the sky.

Only one week after opening, a travel vlogger named Miss Anna, who had more than one million followers on a certain platform, stayed at my guesthouse.

The vlog she filmed about her stay exploded, and the view count grew into a dizzying number.

My hand trembled as I refreshed the reservation list in the backend again and again.

The numbers kept climbing, and they filled the entire screen. The bookings extended to the end of the month, and to the next month, and the month after that…

It went all the way to the end of the year.

I cried tears of joy without shame.

Across two lifetimes, this was the first time someone as directionless in life as me had ever tasted such success.

It seemed like fate favored me. So how could I not work even harder?

For several days in a row, I walked around with a silly grin, and my energy soared.

Until one late night after work, when I scrolled through the internet at full speed and my eyes froze on a single post.

[As her former best friend, I have to announce publicly: The internet’s favorite “comfort guesthouse” owner, Rachel, has pushed me into severe depression!]