Deep into the night, the Ashford villa was so quiet it almost felt frozen.
Vivienne Ashford moved like a sneaky little cat, carefully pushing open Elliot Ashford’s bedroom door. She leaned in and took a quick look. No one was there. The room was empty, except for the steady rush of water coming from the bathroom.
She slipped inside at once and headed straight for the desk. The second she found Elliot’s phone, she keyed in the password fast and unlocked it. The screen lit up, and sure enough, it was already on the chat app.
At the very top of the pinned contacts list was one name: "Tongtong."
Elliot was a notorious high school troublemaker in senior year, the kind everyone knew and no one wanted to mess with. Wild, reckless, impossible to control. But when it came to the school beauty, Aurora Shelton, he was completely gone for her. Head over heels, no joke. He had caused plenty of drama at school just standing up for her, and getting publicly criticized had basically become routine for him.
Right then, a new message from Tongtong popped up.
"Brother Xu, do you boys all really like the soft, fragile type... like your little sister?"
That "little sister" was obviously Vivienne herself.
The corner of her mouth lifted. Without even blinking, she typed back, "Yep. That’s exactly the type we like."
The other side clearly did not expect that kind of reply from Elliot, who usually treated her like a queen. There was a long pause.
After a while, Aurora sent another message, sounding cautious this time.
"Then for girls like me, the kind who always play basketball with boys... you guys probably aren’t into that, right?"
Vivienne didn’t hold back at all.
"Yeah. Can’t stand tomboys like you. Blocking you now."
And after sending it, she really did block and delete the school beauty in one smooth move.
Then she leaned back in the chair, looking completely at ease, and waited for Elliot to come out and lose it on her. It wasn’t because she had some weird masochistic streak. It was because she didn’t belong in this world in the first place. Only death could send her back.
Vivienne Ashford had transmigrated into a book.
Before all this, she had just been an ordinary girl. Her dream was simple: buy a home, settle down, get a stable job, live a decent life. Ever since college, she had worked herself to the bone for that goal, studying while also making money off drawing meme stickers to support herself.
Honestly, her life had been insanely lucky. One of her original comic characters got picked up by a big company, and the two million copyright payout went straight into buying her apartment.
Right after graduation, she even got into a public institution job with great pay and benefits. Even though she had been adopted, her parents adored her like she was their precious treasure. She had basically been living the winner script.
Who would’ve thought that on the day she was supposed to officially become a full employee, while she was riding her bike toward the bridge, a big black Mercedes came straight at her. She had obviously slammed the brakes with all her strength, but for some reason they just failed. Then she crashed into it, and after that...
When she opened her eyes again, she realized she had fallen into one of those rich-family true-and-fake-heiress novels and become the fake daughter with the doomed ending.
The Ashford family turned out to be crazy rich. Their youngest daughter had been kidnapped by traffickers when she was six years old.
Mr. Ashford was a superstitious businessman. Some so-called master had told him that all seven child positions in the family had to be filled for wealth to keep flowing in, so he adopted Vivienne from an orphanage.