When my younger sister, Victoria Sterling, was admitted to a renowned biological laboratory,

our parents threw her a lavish celebration at a luxury hotel, and my brother, Sebastian Sterling, gifted her a Rolls-Royce Cullinan for her daily commute.

My former fiancé, William Turner, even bid on a diamond necklace worth 100 million yuan as her reward.

During a media interview, a reporter asked, "I recall the Sterling family has another daughter, Emily Sterling. What about her..."

The moment my name was mentioned, their faces twisted with utter disgust.

My parents said, "Don't mention that disgraceful daughter. Three years ago, jealous of Victoria, she tried to run her over with a car. After being exposed, she fled with a large sum of money from our family. Who knows where she's living the high life now."

My brother also spoke up in disgust, "I only have one sister, and that is Victoria. That Emily is an ungrateful wretch. I hope she dies out there and never comes back."

For three years, public hatred toward me never ceased. I became known as the jealous, vicious woman who tried to kill her own sister.

Countless insults and curses swirled around me.

Until one day, my brother—a forensic reconstruction artist, was restoring the face of a female corpse.

Only then did he realize that the tortured, unrecognizable body before him belonged to the very sister he claimed to despise so much.

..............

A landslide had washed my body out into the open.

After three years, my body had decomposed beyond recognition; anyone who saw it couldn't help but retch.

In the morgue, the forensic examiner performed an extensive examination on my body, his eyes eventually widening in shock.

"The victim was female, approximately 23 at the time of death. Based on the condition of the uterus, she was pregnant, but her belly was cut open and the fetus was removed while she was still alive."

"This woman endured unimaginable agony before she died. Her skull was crushed by a heavy object, and her face disfigured beyond recognition. Her eyes were gouged out, her eardrums pierced, her tongue severed, and even her limbs were hacked off while she was still conscious."

"Tragically, none of those injuries killed her instantly. She likely suffered for about three days before finally dying from the sheer pain."

"What kind of deep hatred would drive someone to commit such brutality?"

My soul floated in the air, listening to him discuss my remains, finally learning just how cruel my death had been.

Before this, my soul had been trapped on the mountain; I could only leave once my body was discovered.

But I had absolutely no memory of how I died, which was why I couldn't move on to reincarnation.

If the police can uncover the truth behind my death, perhaps then I can finally reincarnate.

The morgue was so silent it felt as if even the breathing of a soul like mine could be heard.

After a long silence, Detective Miller, who was standing nearby, finally spoke. "Is there any evidence to prove her identity? Her skull is shattered, making facial reconstruction impossible. Our only option is to extract DNA to identify the victim; only then can we find the killer."

The forensic examiner shook his head. "This killer is a pro, or at least someone with knowledge of chemistry and biology. I've examined the body thoroughly; the victim was soaked in a special chemical solution before death. All DNA evidence has been destroyed. We can't identify her through DNA."

"Then what do we do?"

The forensic examiner stared at my limbless corpse. "We have to find the victim's limbs first. Maybe there's some evidence left on them."

Just then, a sudden knock came from the door.

"We found the limbs at the scene. We need the forensic examiner to confirm if they belong to the victim."

"Great. Bring them in, quickly."

The forensic examiner sounded a bit excited. "Hopefully, we'll find some solid evidence on them."

My limbs were laid out on the autopsy table. After a thorough examination, the examiner confirmed, "These definitely belong to the victim."

"However, we still can't find any usable DNA."

"But we can tell that the victim had a previous injury to her right wrist—there are signs of a healed fracture. Also, her left foot has six toes."

"Now we can search the missing persons database for a woman of the right age with these specific traits."

Unfortunately, no woman matching those descriptions was found in the database.

"Without extractable DNA, relying solely on these physical traits is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Who knows when we'll identify her."

Suddenly, the forensic examiner spoke up. "There is actually someone who might be able to help us."

"Sebastian from the Sterling family."

My heart suddenly skipped a beat, followed by a sharp, stinging pain.

Did I… know this person?

Just then, Detective Miller, who was handling the case, suddenly perked up. "You mean the legendary forensic reconstruction artist?"

"That's actually a brilliant idea. If we can restore the victim's appearance, we might be able to identify her."

Soon enough, Sebastian appeared in the morgue.

His gaze was cool and detached. "This will only take three days. I can reconstruct her facial features as they were before death."

Detective Miller nodded enthusiastically. "That would be fantastic."

"This victim suffered too much before she died. We have to catch the killer who did this to her."

"But right now, the evidence only tells us she was around 23, had an injury on her right wrist, and six toes on her left foot. Beyond that, we've hit a dead end."

Hearing this, the previously composed Sebastian suddenly looked grave. "Did you just say the victim was 23, with a right wrist injury and six toes on her left foot?"

When Detective Miller confirmed it, a flicker of panic crossed Sebastian's face, followed immediately by a muttered expression of disgust. "It must be a coincidence. She stole so much money back then, how could she possibly die on that desolate mountain?"

Detective Miller frowned. "What was that?"

Sebastian shook his head. "Nothing. Let me get started."

Standing beside him, I was overwhelmed by a deep, sorrowful ache—a tightness in my chest that wouldn't ease. My intuition screamed that I had known him when I was alive.

Sebastian put on his gloves and began the reconstruction. True to his reputation, after three or four hours, the basic contours of the face had taken shape.

I stared intently at the shape. It already bore a thirty percent resemblance to my own face.

Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through my head. Fragments of memories flashed through my mind, but I couldn't hold onto any of them.

Just as I was struggling to hold onto something, his phone rang.

Interrupted, a flicker of impatience crossed his eyes, but the moment he saw the caller ID, his gaze filled with pure adoration.

"Victoria, is something wrong?"

The voice on the other end was sugary sweet and whining. "Sebastian, why have you been gone so long? I want Rotisserie Chicken from Charlie's. Will you buy some for me?"

"Sebastian, I'm really starving."

"Alright, I'm going to get it for you right now."

Sebastian hung up the phone and started packing up to leave.

officer Miller couldn't help but comment, "Mr. Sterling, you really have a great relationship with your sister."

A happy smile played on Sebastian's lips. "Yes, she's my most beloved sister. Let's stop here for today; my little princess wants Rotisserie Chicken, so I have to go queue up for her."

Sebastian left, and my soul involuntarily drifted after him.

It wasn't until I was in his car that I realized with a shock—I could actually move away from my own corpse now.

Perhaps he really could uncover the truth behind my death.

I followed him to Charlie's. It was only four in the afternoon, but a long line had already formed.

This man, dressed in a tailored suit, joined the queue as if it were the most natural thing in the world, his distinct aura making him look completely out of place.

For some reason, a sudden wave of bitterness and grievance welled up in my heart.

That feeling only intensified when I followed him back to a villa.

"Sebastian, you're back!"

A figure fluttered over like a breeze and threw herself into Sebastian's arms.

I suddenly felt a chill run through my body, making even my soul tremble uncontrollably.

Suddenly, her gaze shifted to look behind Sebastian.

I hid behind the door out of pure reflex. Trembling, I opened my eyes, and only when I saw them entering together did I finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Then it hit me—she probably couldn't see me.

But it also made me realize something else: she might be the one who brutally murdered me.

As I followed them into the villa, a splitting headache struck me again. Fragments of memory flooded my mind.

A young girl in shabby clothes stood shivering in the middle of the living room. A circle of people stood around her, staring with scrutinizing eyes filled with disdain.

"Is this really my biological sister? She looks so cheap and low-class. She doesn't have even a fraction of Victoria's grace."

"What a shame. If only Victoria were my blood sister. I don't want some country bumpkin for a sister—it's embarrassing."

"Since we found her, we'll keep her. But don't take her out in public for now. Looking like that, she's an embarrassment to the Sterling family."

Later, the girl was carelessly sent to live in an unused servants' quarters.

It was all because the adopted daughter threatened to leave, crying, "Mom, Dad, now that you have your real daughter, you won't love Victoria anymore, will you?"

"I am scared. You should just give my room to her."

The elegant lady's heart broke at Victoria's tears. She pulled the sobbing girl into her arms. "Don't cry, Victoria. You are Mommy's favorite daughter. No one can ever replace you."

Just to keep Victoria from being upset, they shoved their newly returned biological daughter into the servants' quarters.

Later, Victoria looked at her with smug satisfaction, eyes full of mockery.

"See? Even though you're their real daughter, I still matter more. If you know what's good for you, you'll get the hell out of here."

The girl ignored her, but then, standing at the top of the stairs, Victoria suddenly threw herself down.

Through tears, she pointed at the girl and cried, "Sister said it's not fair that she has to live in the servants' quarters while I get the big room because she's the biological one! Then she pushed me!"

"Sebastian, my leg hurts so bad!"

I shook my head in denial. "I didn't! She's lying! She threw herself down!"

But Sebastian didn't believe the girl for a second. Furious, he slapped her across the face. "I knew growing up on the streets would make you rotten. Lying like that—you don't deserve to be part of this family."

"Why didn't you just die out there? Why did you even bother coming back?"

Then he kicked me down the stairs. I heard the sickening crack of bone in my wrist, my face going pale from the pain. "Mom, Dad, I didn't do it. Please believe me."

But Mom and Dad didn't believe me either. They looked at me with equal disgust. "Your brother is right. We'd be better off without a daughter like you."

Victoria was crying out in pain nearby, and Mom and Dad rushed to take her to the hospital.

I tugged at the hem of Mom's shirt, clutching my wrist. "Mom, I think my wrist is broken. Can you take me to the hospital too? Please?"

My brother kicked my hand away, his eyes full of revulsion. "You just got back and you're already trying to compete with Victoria for attention? Where did you learn such dirty tricks?"

"Victoria says her leg hurts, so suddenly your wrist is broken? You grew up in the countryside; you're not that fragile. Just stay home and behave yourself."

After they left, the girl fainted from the pain, all alone in the house.

The memory ended abruptly.

An agonizing pain gripped my chest, and a wave of overwhelming grievance washed over me.

I realized that girl was me.

I tried hard to recall more, but a voice interrupted my thoughts.

"What?

A landslide at Mount Oakhaven washed down a female corpse with a shattered skull and severed limbs, and you're going down there just to reconstruct her face?"

Victoria gasped in surprise, the cup in her hand slipping and crashing to the floor.

"Victoria, what's wrong?

Let me see if you burned your hand. Why is your face so pale?"

"Did this scare you? I shouldn't have told you about it. It's all my fault."

Sebastian helped Victoria sit on the sofa, carefully checking her hands.

Victoria grabbed Sebastian's wrist. "Sebastian, doing this kind of thing brings bad luck. Can you stop? I get scared just knowing you've come back from the morgue."

Victoria leaned into Sebastian's embrace, acting spoiled, though a flicker of fear flashed in her eyes.

Sebastian patted her back, his tone doting. "Alright, I promise you. After this time, I won't go anymore."

"But I've already agreed to do it this time. I can't just give up halfway. Be a good girl."

Victoria nodded, but her eyes were filled with venomous spite.

The next day, Sebastian continued reconstructing the skull in the morgue while I watched nervously from behind.

Three hours passed, and the features already bore a seventy percent resemblance to mine.

Just then, my head began to ache again, and a memory rushed into my mind.

Because Mom and Dad doted on Victoria, they told everyone I was adopted. At school, I suffered endless grievances due to Victoria's bullying.

In my most wretched moments, William appeared. He shielded me under his protection, and I became his fiancée.

After that, the open bullying stopped—but the underhanded schemes never did.

"Emily, don't think William can protect you forever. I'll steal him away soon enough."

I used to be dismissive, thinking she couldn't do it. But after her repeated setups, she actually managed to make William slowly grow to loathe me.

As soon as we graduated from university, he wanted to break off our engagement to be with Victoria instead.

Devastated and utterly disappointed in him and that family, I left home immediately and went to work at a hotel.

Unexpectedly, I ran into him again. He was drunk that day. Almost without thinking, I went up to help him, only to be pulled into his room where we slept together. Afterward, I fled quickly. The memory stopped there.

While I was in a daze, I heard Detective Miller's voice.

"Mr. Sterling, there's no rush. You haven't rested for nearly four hours. Take a break."

Sebastian wiped the sweat from his forehead and shook his head. "I promised to go back early today to keep Victoria company. I must finish this soon."

I looked at the face he had restored; it now bore a ninety percent resemblance to mine.

Yet he still didn't find the face familiar. He didn't connect it to me at all. All he could think about was finishing the job quickly to go home to Victoria.

It was as if I, his sister, had been completely forgotten by him.

I stood quietly behind him, waiting to see if he would find the face familiar once he had completely restored it.

Or perhaps he still wouldn't realize it, not until the police identified me by my appearance and brought my death certificate to the house. Only then would he remember that the corpse he had reconstructed was me.

Time ticked by, second by second. When the clock pointed to six, he stopped his movements.

"It's done."

As his voice fell, he looked up to examine the victim's face, and his expression instantly turned grim.

The tool in his hand sliced into his palm, blood streaming out, yet he felt absolutely nothing.

He staggered, staring fixedly at the body, his eyes filled with disbelief. "How could it be you?"

As he spoke, a sharp pain pierced my head again, and a memory flooded into my mind.

I finally knew how I died.

That day, as I rushed out of William's room in a panic, I ran straight into Victoria.

She had found out about William and me. She seized my hair and slapped me viciously.

"You bitch! William doesn't want you, so you use these dirty tricks. How can you be so cheap?"

"I didn't."

My eyes red, I stammered, "He was drunk. He forced himself on me. I didn't do anything. Don't talk nonsense."

Victoria scoffed, looking at me with disdain. "Forced you? Look at who you are. Why would he want you? You definitely seduced him on purpose."

"Let me tell you, don't think sleeping with William means you can steal him away. I suggest you give up on that idea right now."

"If he finds out when he wakes up, he'll only loathe you more. He'll probably want to kill you."

Her words hit me hard. After all, he was the man I once loved, and I couldn't bear the thought of him looking at me with disgust.

Victoria was good at reading people. Seeing my expression, she looked even more triumphant.

She had me fired from the hotel, forced a contraceptive pill down my throat, and locked me up.

It wasn't until half a month later that she finally let me go.

Then, flaunting a diamond ring, she gloated, "Let me tell you, William has already proposed to me. He thinks the woman from that night was me. So even if you go tell him now, he won't believe you. He'll just think you're a manipulative schemer."

Once released, I returned to my rental apartment and started looking for a new job.

Unexpectedly, three months later—whether because Victoria's pill had failed or for some other reason—I found out I was pregnant.

Just as I was panicking about what to do, Victoria found out. It turned out she had placed spies around me, watching my every move to stop me from contacting William. She hadn't expected to uncover the secret of my pregnancy instead.

She dragged me to Mount Oakhaven and began to brutally torture me.

"You bitch. How dare you secretly get pregnant with William's child. If I hadn't found out early, were you planning to go run to him?"

"You want to use this baby to trap him and steal William away? Let me tell you, keep dreaming."

Bound hand and foot, staring into her manic eyes, I begged in terror, "I didn't think that! I don't know why the pill didn't work!"

Smack!

She slapped me across the face. "Still lying? Just looking at you makes me sick."

"Let me tell you, in this life, you will always be beneath my feet."

Under my terrified gaze, Victoria sliced open my stomach, located the uterus with precision, and removed the fetus inside.

Holding that bloody mass, her eyes filled with insanity, she asked, "Well?

Do you like it?

This is your child. Haha."

My whole body convulsed in agony. "You monster... you lunatic."

She ignored me, taking the knife to slash my body over a hundred times. The pain made me pass out and wake up repeatedly; I felt that hell itself could be no worse than this.

Yet she remained unsatisfied, staring at me with pure malice: "I will make you deaf, blind, and mute. That way, even in the Underworld, you won't be able to file a complaint."

She gouged out my eyes, pierced my eardrums, and sliced off my tongue.

Finally, she severed my limbs and watched me bleed to death.

After I died, my soul drifted out, and I watched her submerge my body in a special liquid.

A sinister sneer curled her lips: "Now they won't be able to find any DNA."

When it was all done, as if a thought suddenly struck her, she smashed my skull: "This way, even the most advanced modern technology won't be able to reconstruct your face."

"Emily, now no one will ever recognize your corpse. Hahaha."

After that, she buried my remains in a pit.

As for my memory loss, my life had been full of pain, and my death was simply too gruesome. I didn't want to remember. So, unconsciously, my rejection of the trauma caused me to forget it all.

Later, I became like a wandering spirit, trapped on the mountain, unable to descend until the landslide occurred.

And now, I have finally retrieved all my memories.

Noticing Sebastian's strange reaction,Detective Miller suddenly realized something.

"Mr. Sterling, you know the victim?"

Sebastian's face was deathly pale. He stared at the reconstructed skull, opened his mouth, and said, "It's my sister, Emily."

"But that's impossible. In the autumn three years ago, she was in France. How could she have died that summer, and here in the country?"

"There must be a mistake. It's impossible."

Detective Miller immediately latched onto the key detail. "Mr. Sterling, you say she was in France that autumn. Do you have concrete proof?"

Sebastian picked up his phone with trembling hands and opened a photo. "It's this photo. She was clearly living a life of luxury at a French estate."

Detective Miller looked at the photo and frowned. "Mr. Sterling, send that photo to me. I'll have my colleagues analyze it."

"We also need to check your sister's identification details. If there are records of her living here or abroad during these three years, then this might be a mistake. Otherwise…"

Sebastian was about to speak when he suddenly realized he didn't know Emily's details at all. He couldn't even remember her phone number.

He made a call. "Mom, send me Emily's ID information."

There was a pause on the other end. "Did that wretched girl cause trouble out there? I knew she was up to no good. What did she do this time?

This time I'm going to..."

Before she could finish, Sebastian cut her off with a cold voice. "Mom, the police found a female body. The characteristics match Emily."

The line went silent. When she spoke again, her voice was trembling. "There must be a mistake. How could someone as vicious as her die?"

"Mom, just send me her ID information."

Sebastian interrupted impatiently.

"Wait a moment then. How would I know her details? I'll have the maid check in her previous room."

Half an hour later, my information was sent over.

Checking it against the system, Detective Miller's face turned grim.

"We found no record of her leaving the country in the last three years. Her records stopped in June, three years ago."

"Also, our tech department found that this photo is doctored."

"So, where did you see this photo? This might be the key to finding your sister's killer."

Sebastian's face grew even paler at the question.

Victoria had shown him the photo. She said Emily had stolen money and jewelry from the family and ran off abroad to live a lavish life.

At the time, he had wished this sister would just die overseas. But now the facts were telling him she might have died before ever leaving the country.

A flash of guilt crossed Sebastian's eyes. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He couldn't say Victoria gave him the photo.

What if the police suspected Victoria? She was about to join the National Laboratory; he couldn't cause trouble for her now. Maybe she'd just found it on some foreign site by accident.

He needed to go back and ask her before deciding what to do. When he spoke again, he said, "I just saw it by chance while browsing a foreign website. I've forgotten where."

"Besides, I need to go back and tell my family that the victim might be my sister."

"She may be ungrateful and has made many mistakes, but she is still my family, after all."

Leaving the police station, he raced home, impatient to get back. He walked up to Victoria's door, but just as he was about to knock, he heard Victoria's voice from inside.

"Two and a half years ago, I paid you to dig up the body on the mountain and dump it in the open sea—to end this for good. How could you take the money and not do the job?"