My dead body was finally pulled out of the water after three years after I died.

At that moment, my parents were at the airport picking up Gianna Pattington, my adopted sister.

The police called each family member one by one, and it wasn't until the 99th call that someone finally picked up.

"How could Emilia end her life? Even if she did, she should've done it far away so no one would find her and disturb our family reunion." Gianna thought.

She didn’t notice my parents’ face darken, looking at her in shock.

That was my last gift before leaving this world.

Now, every lie she told, every thought she hide, echoed in their ears.

And they’ll finally know who the real monster in this family was.

***

After Mom hung up the phone, she slammed it down on the table in a fit of pique.

"Emilia really has some nerve. She actually lied to us about being dead! How could she possibly kill herself?"

Everyone at the dinner table was taken aback by this news. But recalling what I'd done before, they all figured it was way more likely that I was just lying again.

After all, they thought I had once threatened my own life just to make them celebrate my birthday.

Gianna wiped away her tears and said, "Emi must've been angry that no one told her I was coming back today. So she made that prank call. It's all my fault. I shouldn't have returned."

She stood up as she cried, ready to leave. My family quickly rushed over to comfort her, telling her that crying so hard was bad for her eyes.

Gianna and I were taken home by the wrong parents after birth. I was the real Pattington heiress.

But Mom and Dad were worried that if she returned to her birth parents, her life would be tough. So they asked her to stay. They also gave some money to my adoptive parents to thank them for raising me.

This was all happening even though they knew I spent my time just doing chores and taking beatings at that place.

One evening, we were all cozied up on the couch watching TV when suddenly a loud ringtone broke through the chill vibe.

It was the police. This time, they called about where to send my remains.

"Hello, is this Mrs. Pattington? Your daughter Emilia Pattington's body is currently at our station. We'd appreciate it if you could come by tomorrow to collect it."

When Mom heard my name, she looked confused first, then her expression quickly changed to disgust.

"How much money did she pay you all to go along with this? She's always been a big fat liar. Tell her—no matter what tricks she's got up her sleeve, we're never taking her back!"

With that, she hung up the phone and went back to watching TV with the rest of the family.

Before long, Dad got a call from the police too. When Mom found out, she started yelling and cursing me.

"What have we ever done to deserve this? Every time she shows up, she tries to give me a heart attack and ruin this family! We'll go check it out tomorrow. See what she wants."

Gianna gently patted Mom's back to help her catch her breath, her eyes shimmering with tears.

"It was all my fault. If I hadn't pushed so hard to stay, Emi wouldn't have held a grudge against us, and she definitely wouldn't have pulled such a mean prank on you. She knows you have a weak heart..."

Even Matthew Pattington, my taciturn brother, chimed in. "Emi is so spoiled. This time, we really need to teach her a good lesson!"

The whole family was busy discussing how to deal with me once they found me tomorrow, completely missing the faint smile curling on Gianna's lips.

Actually, when I first got back home, my family wasn't acting like this at all. They were really sorry for everything I'd been through and wanted to do whatever they could to make it up to me.

Matthew introduced me to his friends. My mom handed me her secondary credit card. My dad even offered me some shares in the company. Gianna stepped up to help me get used to my classmates and the campus, plus she taught me how to navigate high society. At one point, they even thought about getting my adoptive parents thrown in jail.

Having never felt love before, I was deeply moved and wanted to repay them twice over.

Then out of nowhere, I suddenly found out that I could hear Gianna's thoughts.

I overheard her thoughts and found out that Mom loved peanut butter, so I woke up early to make breakfast for her. But after she ate it, her skin broke out in red rashes, and she had a hard time breathing. It was only because the housekeeper called 911 that Mom barely avoided a serious situation.

That was when I realized it was an allergy, and from that day on, Mom's attitude toward me grew colder.

Later, as I passed by the study door, I heard her planning to switch important bidding documents with a pile of scrap paper. So, I grabbed the documents ahead of time, thinking I'd give them to Dad before his meeting. But that night, I found out those documents were stolen and the company lost the bid. When Dad figured out I had taken them, he even thought about sending me away. Luckily, Matthew defended me and convinced him to let me stay.

After that incident, it felt like I hardly existed in the family anymore.

The last time I caught a glimpse of her thoughts was right before Matthew's exam. She wanted to lock him in the house so he couldn't go take it. This time, just to be safe, I locked Gianna's door beforehand. But when Mom came back home, she slapped me hard. It turned out that Matthew was actually inside that room all along.

Gianna hid behind them and silently mouthed the word "idiot" at me.

That was when it hit me just how big a mistake I had made. Dad wanted to send me away, but Mom still held onto a bit of family love and decided to give me one more shot.

To fix my image, I worked even harder on my etiquette, hoping to impress everyone at the family recognition ceremony. But out of nowhere, my dress ripped, and that turned the Pattington family into a total joke in high society.

Just when my parents were about to send me abroad for school, Gianna suddenly had a heart attack and almost died. After looking into it, they found out I had switched her medicine.

Even more abrupt were the rumors that started online about me taking out loans. The worst part? My adoptive parents came forward as witnesses. They even went live, accusing me of looking down on their struggles and claiming that after reuniting with my biological family, I threatened to kill them.

In an instant, I became the target of everyone's anger. Even when I tried to explain myself online, no one cared to listen. The Pattington family quickly cut me off and kicked me out of their house.

With nowhere else to go, I ended up squatting by the river and was shoved into the water with force. Just before everything went dark, I saw it was Gianna who did it.

After I drowned, she pulled my body out of the river, chopped it up, and stuffed the pieces into a suitcase.

That was when it hit me, this was all part of her plan. She was scared I'd take away all the love and attention she had, so she made sure I heard her thoughts on purpose, tricked me into doing the wrong things, and turned my family against me.

My body had been floating in the lake for three years before a fisherman finally found it.

On the way to the police station, Mom wouldn't stop cursing at me. "Didn't we give her a card? That card's been used for stuff all these years.

"That damn girl, no matter how much she wants to joke around, how could she mess with her own life?"

Dad and Matthew were busy handling company stuff, while Mom just kept muttering away. No one even noticed that Gianna looked like she was about to pass out.

It wasn't until after I died that I found out that, after I got kicked out, my parents had asked her to give me a card and promised they'd put money on it regularly. But in the end, Gianna gave that card to her real parents instead.

They could've easily checked the transaction records and seen that the card had never been used outside of the country. But they didn't bother.

When they got to the police station, the officers took them straight to the morgue. The cold, grim vibe made Mom cling tightly to Dad's arm.

Before pulling back the white sheet, the police gave them a heads-up.

"After Ms. Emilia passed away, she went through some really terrible stuff. You guys should brace yourselves."

As soon as they lifted the sheet, they both immediately threw up.

After three years, all that was left were my clothes—just hanging there, empty and shapeless.

Once they stopped vomiting, Mom walked over to the table again.

She nervously pulled back the white cloth but quickly turned away when she caught a glimpse of the corner of my clothes. Her face twisted in disgust.

It was Matthew who finally found the courage to step forward. But when he saw those bare bones shining under the light, he jumped back fast. After that, he just stared at my clothes, lost in thought.

When I got kicked out, Gianna wouldn't let me take anything that belonged to the Pattington family. So here I was, still in those jeans that had faded from being washed a million times and that t-shirt with holes in it—the same stuff I wore when I first joined the family.

"These clothes are so basic. Anyone could pick them up anywhere. How can you be so sure this is my sister?"

When Dad saw what I was wearing, Dad snapped at the police right away.

"Have you even done a DNA test? How can you just say that this is my daughter?"

The police handed over the ID card and wallet they found in the suitcase.

Inside the wallet was our only family photo taken after I came back.

I noticed a flash of panic in Mom's disdainful eyes. She grabbed the wallet and held it tightly, like she was hanging onto something important.

After checking inside, she said with surprise, "There's no card in here! She must have been robbed. This isn't my daughter!

"Gianna, didn't Emi call you just a couple of days ago? Isn't she studying abroad?"

Gianna looked even more pale. She quickly pulled out her phone. "Mom, look, this is the photo Emi sent me. She's fine! Don't freak out. You need to take care of yourself."

Hearing this, Mom went back to her usual self. "This is just some robber. I can't tell who this person is from an ID card alone.

"We can pay for a DNA test ourselves."

Both my dad and my brother nodded along.

Even though the officers weren't happy about it, they still did their jobs seriously. One of them said, "Okay. It'll take at least three days to get the test results. I'll let you know as soon as we have them."

Back home, Mom rushed into my old room like she was looking for something.

I figured she wanted to see whether I was truly a coward afraid of dying.

She plopped down on the bed and glanced around, with an expression in her eyes that I just couldn't get.

When Gianna saw Mom acting this way, she came in holding a plate of mushroom soup.

"Mom, I just got off the phone with Emi. It turns out she really did lose her wallet and ID.

"Don't stress too much about it. She's just mad at us and probably didn't want to bring it up."

The sadness in Mom's eyes quickly turned to anger. "I knew it! And here I was, worrying about her just a minute ago.

"The same old trick. She actually lied to us twice."

On my last birthday before I died, Gianna had a heartache, so the whole family rushed to the hospital with her.

While I was up on the rooftop, enjoying the wind blowing through my hair, she started spreading rumors that I was about to jump off.

Mom cried and begged me not to do it. Dad and Matthew looked terrified, their eyes red from worry that I might fall.

I came down from the rooftop to put an end to this ridiculous scene, but then Gianna suddenly collapsed on the ground, crying and slapping herself in the face.

In the end, everything wrapped up with her getting hospitalized again because of a relapse, and I was left all alone on the rooftop after my family just abandoned me.

I have no idea what Gianna told them at the hospital, but suddenly their attitude towards me went from ignoring me to outright disgust.

A cry of pain from outside snapped me out of my thoughts. Dad had actually fallen down.

Mom rushed over and scolded him, "You're supposed to be an adult, and you still manage to trip and fall!"

Dad didn't even pay attention to Mom. Instead, he shot Gianna a sharp look like a hawk and asked, "Anna, did Emilia really go to school? Did she actually send you those photos?"

Gianna calmly pulled out her phone and showed us the pictures.

She stood off to the side, quietly crying.

"I know I'm not your biological child. You might not believe me, but you're the only parents I have in my heart!"

Mom hit Dad.

"Why are you blaming Anna for an ungrateful daughter? Besides, Emilia wasn't raised by us. Who knows what her adoptive parents taught her?

"What kind of decent person can be raised from that poor place?"

Matthew came over to help Dad up. He looked at Gianna with a smile and said, "Exactly! Anna is my sister, and so is Emi. No one gets to mess with them!"

I always felt like when Matthew said this, his smile didn't really reach his eyes.

That night, Mom couldn't sleep at all. She scrolled through her phone for a while before setting it aside.

She went to my room again, looked at that family photo, and ran her fingers over the empty space in it. Finally, she decided to make a call.

"Hello, is this the detective? Can you help me find out what Emilia's been up to for the last three years?"

After hanging up, she started looking around. Eventually, she found an iron box under the bed that had my diary inside.

Just as she was about to open it, Gianna walked in.

With red eyes, she threw herself into Mom's arms and started crying softly.

"I just had a dream... that you didn't want me anymore, Mom!"

Mom lowered her head and looked at Gianna softly. "Silly girl, how could I not want you? What kind of mother would just abandon her own child?"

But after saying that, she paused for a second, and a look of confusion crossed her face. Suddenly, it hit her. She had actually left her real daughter behind a long time ago.

Gianna kept staring at Mom with tears in her eyes. Mom felt a sharp pain in her heart. She quickly brushed off the idea that no one would ever leave their own kid and hurried away.

In the darkness, Mom didn't notice the wicked glint in Gianna's eyes.

Mom took Gianna shopping, so I just roamed around the house. For some reason, I felt my body growing more and more transparent. After hanging out in this world as a soul for three years, I figured maybe it was time to move on.

Dad and Matthew were chatting in the study. Every time I tried to go in there, something pushed me back. Eventually, I gave up trying.

When I walked by again, I was ready to get shoved away once more. But surprisingly, I actually slipped right through that wall.

Inside the study, Matthew was kneeling on the floor with his face covered while Dad held onto his phone tightly.

Matthew said angrily, "How can that be Emi? Who's pretending to be her and messing with us? Doesn't Gianna still have pictures of her daily life?

"Emi is really shameless for doing this, pulling a stunt like this at such a time.

"When I find her, I'm definitely going to give her a piece of my mind!"

I let out a bitter laugh. Even now, they still thought I was the one behind this act.

That night, the Pattington's residence was completely dark. When Mom walked in, she flipped on the light and was taken aback to see someone just sitting there on the couch without moving.

"Why aren't you turning on any lights at this hour? Are you trying to scare someone half to death?"

Gianna chimed in playfully, "Dad and Matt, are you trying to freak me out again? I'm not a kid anymore."

But neither of them said anything back. It was a notification sound from a phone that finally broke the silence.

"Emilia drowned three years ago."

As soon as she saw the message, her phone slipped from her hand and hit the ground, shattering its screen. Mom started breathing really fast.

She pointed at Dad and shouted, "Did you two already know? Why didn't you tell me?

"I'm heading to the police station right now. I can't believe this! That's not her, it can't be!"

Mom took a couple of steps back, looking like all her strength just drained away. Gianna rushed over.

"Maybe it's just a prank from Emi. She even sent me a message today."

Gianna pulled out her phone to find those photos, totally unaware of how everyone in the family was looking at her differently.

She had no idea that everyone could now hear what she was thinking.

Mom stared at the person next to her in disbelief. What she had just heard was nothing like what came out of their mouth.

What she really heard was "Bitch, you're already dead, yet they're still thinking about you."