Family Emotions

In the final seven days after I decided to depart for good, I transformed into the daughter my family had always dreamed of. I conceded to Remy's every whim, never to fight or deny her. When she wanted to use my work for a contest, I deferred. When she wanted me out in the frost and howling wind, I did just that. My quiet compliance led my family to think that I had learned the error of my ways. "You've finally accepted that you owe Remy so much, and that you have to compensate her!" Even until the end, they never understood why I couldn't care less. "Fiona, why aren't you saying anything?" To that, I could only smile. "Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

My mother kept a red notebook recording all of my sister's favourite things. She had a blue notebook for me too. When my mother was hospitalized, I took leaves from work to take care of her. My sister had never shown up. However, my mother recorded in the blue notebook, '15th March, I am not well and am hospitalized. Celine owed me 450 dollars for food allowance. I knew that was not a notebook about my favourite things, but a notebook of all of my expenses. Behind the closed doors, Mother said to Father, "Celine is an evil person. She always likes to compete with her sister. We must take a chance to steal all her money and leave with Belle. Later when we are old, we will ask her to take care of us. I think we should just ask her to pay us back all the money we spent on her that I have recorded in this notebook. I was devastated at that moment.

I'm one of the entertainment industry's most popular celebrities. One day, the Holmes family, the richest family in Hemmingville, comes to me and tells me I'm one of them. The day I return home, the city's paparazzi follow me to capture every second of my return. When I arrive at the Holmes residence, my adoptive sister stops me from entering. "We've looked into you and found out that you shot to fame after starring in an adult film. "The Holmes family has its rules—you have to change your clothes in public before you can step foot in here. Dad said that I'm the one who calls the shots when he and Jason aren't at home, so I hope you can understand me." In my past life, I would've acted cautiously and adopted a lowly stance for the sake of my image. But I've been reborn. I kick aside the things in my way and shove Nancy Holmes aside. "How ridiculous! You'd better stop and think whether you're worthy of telling me what to do. How dare you ask me to strip in public? "I'm insured from head to toe—you can't afford to pay me back if you even touch a hair on my head! And you call yourself the heiress of the family, huh? I'd like to see you grovel at my feet and beg me later!"

My younger sister, Sophie Sawyer, got pregnant before marriage, gave birth to a baby boy in a small clinic, and then disappeared. The doctor used the address she left behind to find my family and handed the child to me. My parents knelt and begged me to raise him, and that was how I, an unmarried young woman, struggled through life with a child on my hip. When I finally managed to raise him, Sophie came back, standing beside a big-shot boss dripping in gold. She held her son and cried, accusing me of being jealous of her, stealing her child, and tearing them apart. My nephew cut ties with me without hesitation, choosing her over me. My parents kicked me out of the house. The neighbors all condemned me. In despair, I jumped to my death. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Sophie gave birth.

I've returned to the Ashcroft family for three years. All three homecoming parties have ended in failure. At the first party, I was accused of stealing a watch in front of the guests. Because of that, I became the entire elite society's laughingstock. In the second party, I was pushed into a swimming pool. As such, I suffered from a high fever and was comatose for three days. It almost killed me. In the third party, a forged paternity test was hurled in my face. My own mother announced that she had cut all ties with me on the spot. Every party ended with the fake heir, Everest Ashcroft, bursting into tears and admitting his mistakes. But the entire family kept telling me, "Everest is deathly afraid of you obtaining our love meant for him. That's why he threw a small tantrum. "You're already acknowledged as a son of the Ashcrofts. Why must you keep latching onto this matter so pettily?" In the fourth party held on the fourth year, Everest threatens to off himself. In order to save him, I fall from the rooftop, causing my right leg to suffer from a comminuted fracture. My entire family huddles around Everest, who's obviously shaken, and keeps showering him with love and care. The butler is ordered to pass on their message to me. "Know your place. Do not disturb Everest when he's in bedrest." As I caress my broken leg, I keep laughing until tears stream down my cheeks. It's not that Everest doesn't want the Ashcrofts to give away their love to me. It's just that the Ashcrofts don't want to acknowledge me as a part of them at all. In that case, I might as well leave this family permanently.

Kyson Hale, the regimental commander, finally agrees to let me live with him on the military base. But in return, our son isn't allowed to address him as "dad". Kyson and I have been secretly married for eight years. I've taken care of his parents in the countryside for that long as well. After the death of his parents, my son, Darryl Hale, and I request Kyson to let us live with him on the military base. He agrees to our requests, but he has a condition of his own. "Once you've reached the military base, you shall declare to everyone else that you're just my relatives from the countryside." Only then do I realize that Kyson has another family of his own in the military. Some time later, I leave the army with Darryl without looking back. But Kyson, who's always been cold and distant, is alarmed by our disappearance.

I was Don Alexander's most skilled assassin and Consigliere, and also his secret wife. But for five years of our secret marriage, he never allowed our son to call him Dad. He always said that the enemy families were constantly watching our family, and that I and our son were his only weakness, so this was to protect us. I believed him, and silently helped him manage all the family affairs, until his first love, Bella, returned with a five-year-old boy. He booked out the entire Disneyland for them to play all day. That day was my son's birthday, and he stubbornly waited for his father to come home, holding a melting cake. I completely lost hope and made a phone call: "Help me cancel my and Leo's identities and erase all our information." But when my son and I truly disappeared, the powerful Don went mad, searching the entire world for traces of us...

During my night shift, I refused to help my adopted sister administer fluids to her patient. After the wrong drug is given, I watch a seven-year-old boy die after he suffers an allergic reaction right before my eyes. In my previous life, the boy's family stormed the nurses' station after I'd just finished administering his IV medication. The next thing I knew, I was violently beaten up. "You poisoned my grandchild by giving him the wrong medicine!" But the fluid I introduced into his bloodstream was a simple glucose solution. It couldn't have led to such a disastrous outcome. When I was on the brink of passing out, someone called the police. I thought help had finally arrived, but I was sorely mistaken. The police officer—my brother—pinned me to the ground. "We found your prints on the drug vial. You're a murderer." Then, my childhood friend, a forensic pathologist, held up an autopsy report and accused me of the same crime. "The patient's time of death is around 5:00 am. That's the same time you administered drugs into his system." Unable to prove my innocence, I was ultimately beaten to death by the boy's enraged family members. My brother and my childhood friend had always loved me. Even on the brink of death, I couldn't understand why they would do this to me. Now, I open my eyes and find myself back on the night it all began.

When I was five months pregnant, my mafia husband Dante Pierce had an affair with his childhood sweetheart. That was when I discovered that our marriage certificate was fake. He had secretly married someone else behind my back. Even worse, the child I was carrying would be excluded from the family inheritance. From beginning to end, I was nothing more than a public front for his precious childhood sweetheart. After learning the truth, I did not cry or throw a tantrum. I quietly erased my legal identity, changed my name and disappeared forever with my child. However, later, everyone claimed that Dante, head of the Pierce family, was a hopeless romantic who had given up everything to search for the wife and child who had vanished without a trace.

My mom and dad died heroically in a fire rescue, trying to protect an orphan. Afterward, my brother brought the orphan, Audrey, home. To make her smile, he'd throw away photos of me and our parents. He even kicked me out in front of everyone. For Audrey's coming-of-age celebration, he took her to Cranburn—the place I'd always dreamed of going. In his eyes, I had nowhere else to go. He believed that once I realized I was wrong, I'd come back on my own. But what he didn't know was—I had joined an overseas rescue team. This might be the last time we ever see each other.