Chapter 1

“So, what do you say, beautiful?”

The young heir to the conglomerate, William Dupont, fixed his deep blue eyes on my adoptive sister, Joanne Clack.

“Come back to Marlovia with me for a vacation. In exchange, your whole family gets to walk out of this alive. That’s a pretty good deal, don’t you think?”

My hot-tempered seventh brother, Frederick Clack, yelled, “Get lost, William! You’re out of your mind if you think you can push us around like this!”

He tried to lunge out of his chair, but William’s bodyguard shoved him firmly back down. He could not move an inch.

William was unfazed. He just glanced contemptuously at the furious Frederick.

He then turned and walked toward Joanne with a smile.

She was trembling uncontrollably with fear.

But as he approached us, she quietly stood in front of me.

I sat in the corner of the living room and watched her shield me.

The truth was, before the Clack family found me, I had just faked my own death on the mountain and fled.

As the only person in the world who knew how to make the Golden Elixir of ancient medicinal arts, I was sought after and fought over by the rich and powerful from every corner of the globe.

They would chase me across the globe like madmen. I did not even have time for a full night’s sleep.

To get some peace, I went to the underworld boss I had cured and used his influence to disappear under a new identity.

Out of boredom, I had read hundreds of those cliched novels about biological and adoptive daughters locked in rivalry.

The parents would always favor the scheming adoptive daughter, and the seven brothers would be too blind to see the truth.

I had been so eager to get myself into that dangerous bit of melodrama.

As a precaution, I made a split-second decision to pretend to be mute. If that adoptive daughter ever dared to pull anything on me, I could use my skill against her.

But I never in a million years expected that none of those melodramatic novel plots would actually happen.

The Clack family turned out to be genuinely good, morally upright people.

When they discovered I was mute, they were heartbroken and felt guilty toward me.

Joanne was the first to learn sign language for my sake.

Even my seven older brothers found their own way to spoil me rotten.

It was a wonderful life, being the apple of the whole family’s eye.

No more being whisked away by helicopter in the middle of the night to perform emergency treatment on powerful and wealthy people, and no more exhausting myself every day treating patients and saving lives.

I was perfectly happy playing my part as the worthless little mute girl.

That was, until that very moment.

William looked at my father, Solomon Clack, who was in despair, and chuckled softly.

“Mr. Clack, I’m not exactly a patient man.

“You’ve pushed back against Marlovian capital time and again, and my grandfather has been unhappy about it for a long while.

“Just to put you in your place, our eight tycoon families in Marlovia have teamed up to bet against your company and drive it into the ground.”

He took his time walking toward my father as he went on. “I flew all this way myself because I just wanted to see for myself how you ‘successful’ Esterlians turn on your own family.”

Joanne shielded me and secretly signed to me with her trembling hands.

[Sylvia, quick, go upstairs and hide!]

I paused, my trifle still in hand, and the silver spoon clinked softly against the rim of the plate.

William followed the noise and looked over.

His gaze swept past Joanne’s shoulders, and he locked eyes with me in the shadowy corner.

He froze for a moment.

Then, his eyes lit up, and his smile widened as if he had discovered some marvelous new toy.

“Well, look at that! We’ve got a little mute girl over here, too!”