Face Fake

I'm a coward—someone who gets bullied and never fights back, who only swallows the humiliation in silence. That is, until the year I turned twenty. A well-dressed, elegant couple found me and told me I was their long-lost son. Overjoyed, I followed them back to their castle-like home, convinced that I was finally about to live a better life. But on the very first day, the fake heir made it clear—I would never know a moment's peace. I didn't dare say a word. Cowardly as ever, I could only think about ending my life. The first time, I slit my wrists. They saved me. The second time, I tried to jump off a building. My sister dragged me back. The third time, I drank an entire bottle of pesticide—and still didn't die. … My family finally saw through the fake heir's true color. "So it was you, pulling the strings all along!" My sister plead, "Brother dear, I'm begging you—please don't kill yourself."

The night my parents were kidnapped, my brother—who happened to be a police officer—chose to go bungee jumping with the fake heiress. I didn't stop him. Instead, I called the police and began preparing the ransom. In my previous life, my brother had forgone the outing to rescue our parents. As a result, the rope snapped during her jump, sending her plummeting into the abyss. Her body was never recovered. He never spoke a word about it afterward. On my birthday, he drugged me and dragged me to that very cliff. "You orchestrated the kidnapping! You'd go this far for their attention? You're nothing but a monster! Lillian is dead. You don't deserve to live either!" When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the night my parents were kidnapped. This time, my brother didn't rush to their rescue. Instead, he ran to the fake heiress. But in the end, he regretted it so much that he nearly lost his mind.

When my mother finally found the real heiress, she was on her knees selling shoes on the street. And to my surprise, I recognized her—she was none other than my fiancé's first love. Determined to oust me, the fake heiress, she played her part well, putting on a daily show to make me look bad. I was content to play along, enjoying our little game, until my fiancé’s offhand remark, “Was that really necessary?" shattered my composure. Fine, I thought, “You can keep this husband and family. I’ve got better things to do—like finding my real parents.”

To find the missing fake heiress, my family forced me to undergo a memory extraction. They were convinced that I had bullied her for the past three years and driven her to run away. I gave a bitter smile and let them continue. As the memories surfaced one after another, the truth became clear. I was the one who had been bullied all along. My parents, overcome with guilt, clutched my hands so tightly they nearly fainted. My brother’s eyes were bloodshot, his teeth grinding until he drew blood. In their arms, I looked up in confusion and asked softly, “Who are you?”

Right after I get accepted to my rich biological family, I become my older sister, Josie Sonnenfeld's marriage replacement. In the first marriage alliance, Josie despises the fact that her partner, Zane Lowry, is a hedonistic playboy who can't even hold down a job. On the day of their engagement, she's fled all the way to another country with another man. I pin Zane down and teaches him how to cook up a perfect scheme so that he can overtake his arrogant half-brother who happens to be a bastard son. In the second marriage alliance, Josie looks down on Benjamin Shaw, a low-income college student who comes from an ordinary family. On their wedding day, she makes sure to humiliate him in front of everyone before ditching him at the altar. With the money I've saved up, I spend one long, grueling year in the basement with Benjamin as he works hard to establish his success. I'm with him until the day he becomes the director of the National Research Institute. In the third marriage alliance, Josie scowls in disgust when she realizes Rowan Gallagher is a total momma's boy. She wastes no time traveling to a tropical island with her male best friend afterward. As for me, I walk into the stressful-looking manor and drag the cowardly Rowan out. By the time I'm done reshaping him, he has succeeded in taking over every single business belonging to his family. Three years later, Josie, who has spent every single cent overseas, has no choice but to return to the country while heavily pregnant. "Thanks for watching over these losers in my stead, Laura. Now that I'm back, you can get lost now." Josie intends to pick one out of her three ex-fiances to become her unborn baby's father. Meanwhile, I tap on a group chat titled "Happy Family" and sends a text there. "Josie is back for you three." Everyone in the group chat instantly goes haywire. The men are quick to proclaim their love and loyalty toward me. "Don't worry, honey! Our hearts and bodies are yours!"

Thanks to my dad's work, I have to transfer schools. Soon, I go to my new school to register for my enrolment. After submitting my personal information, the teacher in charge shoots me an odd look. "Is your father Mr. Chapman, the new shareholder? His child should have enrolled with us a long time ago. In fact, his daughter is half a year older than you. You're not that person at all…" Stunned, I dig out my phone and show my photo with my dad to the teacher. She glances at the photo before showing me the system window. "Mr. Chapman's daughter has been studying in this school since the first term. He even donated a library to the school recently. This is a photo the school board has taken. You can take a look yourself." In the photo, my dad and an unfamiliar student can be seen standing at the school's bulletin board. That young lady looks as old as I do. Her features are similar to my dad's. In fact, she resembles him more than I do! If they are an actual father and daughter pair, then who am I?

Yvette Warren, personal secretary to billionaire Orson Cox, announced that the heiress who was accidentally switched at birth 20 years ago was living in this orphanage. Whoever could prove their identity would inherit a billion-dollar fortune. In my first life, the two-faced Laurel Marsh tricked me into giving her my keepsake to claim the family. The Coxes tore her mouth apart. "Fraud!" In my second life, my frenemy, Rebecca Vargas, tattooed a fake birthmark on herself to claim the family. The Coxes had her skin slashed to shreds. "Still a fraud!" In my third life, my sworn enemy, Vita Davidson, took out online loans to get plastic surgery, reshaping her face to resemble Orson's wife. She tried to claim the family and was thrown straight into a mastiff cage by the Coxes. By my fourth life, no one dared steal my identity anymore. They packed me up overnight and delivered me straight to the Cox residence. When the DNA test confirmed I really was the heiress, everyone thought the nightmare was finally over. But on my very first night back, the Coxes shoved me off a high-rise building. "Anyone who dares steal our real daughter's identity deserves to die!" When I opened my eyes again, Yvette was smiling as she asked who the heiress was. Everyone backed away in terror, insisting they weren't the heiress. Yvette's voice turned low and eerie. "But our investigation shows that the heiress is definitely in this orphanage."

My older sister, Jovina Valenti, catches the eye of the cold and ruthless mafia Don, Carlo Laguardia. However, she fears the danger that arises out of his identity and wants to go abroad to pursue a passionate romance. On the day Carlo sends his men to retrieve her, she drugs my drink and sends me to Carlo. After that, she leaves the country and disappears completely. I, Nerissa Valenti, am forced to become Carlo's wife. He treats me as nothing more than a pet. Despite being married, I ignore Carlo's existence and treat him as if he were invisible. He, on the other hand, continues to make me his pet. When he's pleased with me, he shows me affection. But when I upset him, what awaits me is either cold neglect or harsh reproach. After eight years of this, one day, Carlo suddenly orders that I be locked inside the freezing ice house. I tremble from the cold. When I see Jovina at his side, I realize belatedly that she has, for some reason, decided to return to the country. The first thing she does upon her return is seek Carlo out and lie to him that I drugged myself back then to take her place. Consequently, she was heartbroken and decided to go overseas. Jovina stresses that because of my interference, they spent eight long years being apart from each other. From that moment on, there isn't a trace of emotion left in Carlo's eyes when he looks at me. Under the excuse of visiting me, Jovina comes to the ice house and tampers with the settings. She puts the cold air on full blast at the lowest temperature. "Don't blame me for this, Nerissa. As long as you're alive, my lie will be exposed sooner or later," she says ruthlessly. I don't even last half a day before freezing to death miserably. When I open my eyes again, I return to the day Jovina first catches Carlo's attention. This time, I take the initiative to say, "Jovina, go abroad and look for your true love. I'll marry Carlo in your place." This time, the one Carlo loves will be me.

Jenny Shaw, my roommate and belle of the campus, had been stealing my skincare products for four whole years. She even used them to fake a wealthy and beautiful persona, becoming a million-follower influencer and bagging a wealthy heir. Right before our graduation defense, her face suddenly erupted in severe lesions, completely disfigured. Jenny immediately accused me, claiming that I was jealous and vicious enough to lace the skincare products with poison! In an instant, I was branded online as the Poison Queen and a dangerous figure. Facing the police, I simply smiled at them and showed them my thesis. [Molecular Deconstruction Analysis of Herbal Medicinal Materials: Skin Regeneration and Reconstruction.] "Poisoning you? That's like a pot calling the kettle black. But thanks for providing me with experimental data!"

I got into a car crash with my adoptive sister. The first person to rush to the scene was my childhood sweetheart, Jay Porter—the guy I'd been secretly seeing for two years. But Jay went to her first. He didn't even look my way as I sat there, bleeding heavily on the side of the road. I grabbed his hand, desperate to tell him I was pregnant. He just shook me off. "Sorry, Emma. Julia's delicate. I have to get her to the hospital now. Just wait here for the paramedics." By the time the rescue team got me to the hospital, I was out of immediate danger. But my baby... was gone. I wanted to confront Jay, to demand an explanation. Instead, I overheard him talking to a friend. "You played Emma this whole time, just for Julia's sake. Don't you think that's going too far?" Jay's reply was cold. "So what? Julia's just the Bourne family's adopted daughter—she's never been as protected and cherished as Emma, the precious heiress. That's exactly why it has to be me. I'll protect Julia. For her, I'd do anything." So it was all a lie. Every bit of love he'd ever shown me was just an act. After I was discharged, I went straight home and called my father. "Dad, can you make it so I never existed here? Erase all my records from this country."