Part 1Barrage Saw, I Yielded To Them

We had finally found two young girls who could potentially be our long-lost daughter.

One of them looked remarkably like me, possessing my exact eyes and nose. Yet, when the DNA test results came back, they declared that the other girl was my biological child.

As I stood there, utterly paralyzed by confusion, a strange, glowing feed of scrolling text comments suddenly materialized in front of my eyes:

[Oh my god, the male lead is so romantic! To protect the female lead from suffering, he regressed and swapped her blood sample with the supporting girl's. Now the female lead gets to be his pampered "little sister." I am absolutely living for this!]

[It's a little unfair to the real daughter, though. She was so close to finally being reunited with her real parents.]

[Who cares? The vicious supporting girl spent her entire past life targeting the female lead and did everything she could to keep the main couple apart. She deserves this.]

My ten-year-old son, Lucas, pointed a finger at the little girl who shared my features, his face twisted in disgust. "Mom, since she isn't my sister, throw her back to St. Jude's immediately. I hate her!"

Beside him, my husband, Richard, nodded in agreement. "He has a point. We should send her back as soon as possible."

* * *

The moment my son, Lucas, gestured for the security guard to drag our biological daughter away, I raised my voice.

"Wait!"

Richard, my husband, looked at me with a frown of confusion. "Eleanor, what's wrong?"

I lifted the crisp paper of the DNA report in my hand. "Are you absolutely certain there are no mistakes in this document?"

Richard nodded without a second of hesitation. "Of course, sweetheart. I had Assistant Davis personally guard the lab. He brought the results straight to me the second they were printed. No one else even laid a finger on the files."

I slowly shifted my gaze, locking onto Lucas, my ten-year-old son. "And the blood samples?"

Lucas kept his expression perfectly calm, but I caught the briefest, guilt-ridden flicker of panic in his eyes before he looked away.

Richard let out a soft laugh, completely oblivious. "Dr. Collins drew the blood himself, didn't he? There is no room for error. Eleanor, I know you think Lily looks like you, but a resemblance doesn't automatically mean a blood relation."

"Sometimes, two completely unrelated strangers can look identical. Science doesn't lie, sweetheart. We have to trust the test."

Standing beside him, the little girl the report claimed was our daughter, Fiona, looked up at me. Her eyes were wide, swimming with tears as she whimpered, "Does Mommy not like me?"

I looked down at Fiona, an instinctive knot of disgust tightening in my chest.

I couldn't explain it, but her innocent, wide-eyed look felt deeply calculated, harboring a malice that didn't belong to a child her age. It was this gut feeling that made the test results feel so utterly repulsive and wrong.

Seeing Fiona on the verge of tears, Richard immediately knelt down to comfort her. "Fiona, sweetheart, Mommy doesn't dislike you. She is just adjusting. Give her some time."

Fiona nodded meekly, her lower lip trembling. "Fiona will be a good girl. I'll make Mommy love me."

Richard’s heart melted, and he scooped her into his arms. "You are such a sweet girl."

Fiona buried her face in Richard’s shoulder, pretending to cry, but a strange, glowing chat feed suddenly materialized in front of my eyes, scrolling with floating comments:

Wait, is the female lead acting too? Did she regress as well?

Looks like she did!

Double regression! This is getting good, haha!

A cold sneer formed in my mind.

She knew she wasn't my daughter, yet she was actively pretending to be. What a rotten, deceptive child. No wonder my maternal instincts recoiled from her.

Lucas pointed a finger at the other little girl, the one who possessed my exact eyes and nose, and spoke with pure disgust. "Mom, I told you I hate her. Can we please throw her back to the children's home already?"

Suppressing the urge to slap my own son, I ignored him and knelt in front of the quiet, trembling girl. "Lily, would you like to come with me?"

The anxious little girl looked at me with wide, cautious eyes before nodding softly. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you."

She clearly thought I was driving her back to the orphanage. I didn't correct her just yet. I took her small, cold hand in mine and led her out toward the garage.