Chapter 4

The test results were not ready yet, and Mandy paced restlessly around the Rivers family’s home.

She knew she could not keep the poisoning a secret for much longer.

Since she had already started down this path, she decided to act faster and eliminate me—the greatest obstacle in her way.

She discovered that I was severely allergic to an extremely rare type of imported flower pollen.

Even brief contact could cause anything from a rash covering my body to respiratory failure and death.

At night, she secretly crept into my room.

The system had already warned me about her plan, so I arranged for the nanny to put me to sleep in the guest room.

Maya had recently become obsessed with the diamond music box in my room. She had tried to sneak in and steal it several times.

That night, she saw me leave with the nanny and slipped into my room.

She hugged the music box and happily sprawled across my bed.

She even rolled around a couple of times, completely unaware that the sheets had been tampered with.

The allergic reaction soon began.

Maya started feeling itchy all over. Frightening red welts quickly spread across her face and neck, and her breathing became increasingly labored.

“Mom… Mommy… help me…”

She struggled to call for help, but only managed to produce faint whimpers. In the end, her eyes rolled back, and she passed out.

Mandy waited outside for a long while. When she estimated that enough time had passed, she pretended to come tuck me in and pushed open the door.

She expected to find me suffering through a painful death.

Instead, the child lying on the bed with a face covered in welts and barely clinging to life was her own precious daughter.

“Maya!”

Her anguished scream shattered the quiet of the Rivers family’s mansion.

My parents woke up and hurried over.

They were stunned when they saw what had happened in the room.

Mandy held the unconscious Maya in her arms and sobbed hysterically.

The moment she saw my parents, she rushed toward them like a madwoman, pointed at me, and screamed.

“It was her! Yuna did this to my Maya!

“She knew Maya was allergic to pollen, so she deliberately scattered it across the bed! She wanted to kill my daughter!”

She twisted the truth and accused me before anyone could blame her.

“Michael, you and your wife need to see how vicious this child is!

“She’s only two and a half years old, yet she’s already this cruel! She isn’t a normal child!

“She’s a little psychopath! We have to send her away—to some kind of behavioral facility where they can discipline her! Otherwise, she’ll kill every one of us someday!”

Tears streamed down her face as she spoke with such apparent sincerity that anyone would have thought I was an utterly irredeemable monster.

My mother stared at the chaotic scene, looking completely at a loss.

My father’s brows drew tightly together. He looked at me as I stood silent while Mandy pointed at me and berated me, a complicated emotion flashing across his eyes.

Mandy saw his reaction and cried even harder, convinced that her scheme had succeeded.

“Michael, you can’t keep going easy on her! For the sake of our family and everyone’s safety, you have to send her away!”

Just as she thought victory was within her grasp, I suddenly stopped crying. I had been trembling in the nanny’s arms until then.

I calmly took a miniature camera disguised as a rubber-duck toy from my pocket and pointed it at Mandy.

My voice still sounded childish, but every word rang out clearly through the room.

“Auntie, look at this. Isn’t it fun?”

A beam of light shot from the rubber duck’s eye and projected onto the white wall opposite us.

The high-definition footage clearly showed Mandy sneaking into my room.

She sprinkled a packet of white powder evenly across my bed…

The entire room fell into stunned silence.