Chapter 4

Brittany followed behind, red-eyed, pretending to be generous as she pushed open her bedroom door.

"If you don't mind, you can stay in my room. It originally belonged to you anyway..."

Derek rushed over, blocking our way, acting up again.

"Brittany, this is the princess room Mom decorated for you! Those ill-mannered bumpkins aren't fit to live here!"

Seeing that I was about to unleash another round of insults, Evelyn quickly shot him a glare and gently told Skylar:

"Skylar, you can pick any room in the house. Consider it our way of making it up to you."

Skylar gave Brittany's overwhelmingly pink room a look of distaste, then turned and pointed innocently at another room, larger and with better lighting.

"Then we'll take this one! It's big enough for Chloe and me!"

Derek was nearly insane with rage, his voice rising,

"Are you serious?! That's Mom and Dad's room!"

I smiled sweetly at Evelyn Sterling. "Mom, you just said we could pick any room. You're not going to go back on your word, are you?"

Evelyn's mouth twitched, but she still nodded.

"Great! We're exhausted from a full day of traveling. Mom, Dad, you two should get some rest too!"

With that, I pulled Skylar and slammed the door shut, leaving the petrified family members standing there.

For the next week, Skylar and I went on a crazy shopping spree.

After eight years of hardship, we finally got to experience the joy of buying whatever we wanted without looking at the price tag!

We hauled back several carloads of exaggerated shopping bags, dressed like a pair of opulent socialites.

Whenever Brittany would make snide remarks, dripping with envy, about us wasting money, I'd shut her down with my sharp tongue.

Unable to win with words, she resorted to dirty tricks.

On the first day, she deliberately played weak, throwing a vase from upstairs to try and hit us, but Skylar casually caught it with one hand.

On the second day, she intentionally knocked over a soup bowl at the dinner table, trying to scald Skylar, but my bestie flicked it back with a backhand, and Brittany would yelp like a scalded cat.

On the third day, she secretly tucked her diamond necklace under our pillow, then brought the whole family to "catch us red-handed," only for me to pull out surveillance footage of her sneaking into our room.

Left with no choice, she had to grudgingly give it up, crying and saying she just wanted to give us a "surprise."

Unable to outwit us with words or dirty tricks, Brittany became much more subdued.

But we knew she was plotting something.

Sure enough, a month later, at the class assembly at our prestigious private school, she stood there with red eyes and introduced Skylar and me to everyone:

"These are the sisters my parents recently brought home from the orphanage. Please take good care of them!"

With that single sentence, she made it clear that we were the adopted ones, making it seem like we were the ones who had usurped a place.

The students looked at her with sympathy. "Oh, is the Sterling family really that whimsical? Just adopting two more out of nowhere."

"Poor Brittany, how much love will she have to share now..."

I smiled and urged Skylar to pull out the paternity test results, then said sarcastically,

"Brittany, your words are so interesting. You've been here for eight years, stealing someone else's spot, and you're still playing the victim?

"You're an adopted daughter just like me, so why the act?"

"Hello everyone, I'm Chloe, the best friend of Skylar Sterling, the real heiress! I'm also an adopted daughter of the Sterling family! They adopted me not because they had too much money, but because they were afraid my bestie would be bullied by certain people, so they hoped I would protect her, just like today."

The class instantly fell silent. Everyone looked at Brittany with contempt.

"What? So she was just the pot calling the kettle black all along?"

Girls who usually didn't get along with her started to jeer, "Exactly! She acts like she's the real heiress all the time, but she's just someone with no class trying to pass herself off as royalty."

The laughter was like a slap in Brittany's face. She was so angry and humiliated, she almost burst into tears on the spot.

From then on, she completely became the school's resident manipulative fake daughter.

To prove herself, she started frantically learning piano and dance, hoping to outshine us with her elegance.

Meanwhile, I started taking lessons in stand-up comedy and public speaking.

Skylar, on the other hand, signed up for martial arts and Tai Chi, taking her strengths to the extreme.

Over the next few years, Brittany's attempts to outshine us always fell flat.

Every time there was a school performance, my stand-up comedy and Skylar's performance of breaking cinder blocks on her chest always overshadowed Brittany's carefully choreographed acts.

On campus, I gained a huge following with my sharp wit and humor, and Skylar also helped many people with her brute strength.

With us around, the school's atmosphere improved significantly. Bullying and fights almost disappeared.

The two former little devils finally grew into well-adjusted and universally admired young women by the time we were sixteen.

The Sterling couple grew to love us more and more, planning to hold a press conference to formally announce our presence.

"Skylar should be given some shares in the company for her eighteenth birthday. After all, she is our biological daughter. Our group has been heavily impacted by Everhart Industries these past two years, and we desperately need a strategic marriage alliance to stabilize the situation. Fortunately, Julian Everhart isn't against meeting. We'll see what kind of connection the girls have then..."

Brittany, who had overheard their conversation, clenched her fists.

A malicious smile flickered across her face; she seemed to have hardened her resolve.