The Unloved Replacement

I soon began looking for a chance to leave the Gomez family as quickly as possible.

Caelum shook his head. "It's not possible."

He had tried to escape several times before, but he had been caught and brought back every time. With just a few words from Linda, the others would even blame him for having too much of a temper. They scolded him for running away from home over a minor reprimand.

"If you cause trouble out there, we'll be the one who has to clean up your mess!" They had said.

Caelum continued, "Without me, Mom would have no one to target. Every time something happened, Dad and our sisters became even more distressed for her than before. They would lock me up in a windowless room or punish me themselves afterward.

"It's not that I never explained myself, but none of them believed me. After a long time, I no longer had the energy to argue."

I went to Hannah and told her everything, hoping she could help us in some way. But she denied ever hearing Linda's inner thoughts.

"Coward!" I said angrily.

Hannah's expression changed, and she explained, "Silas, we must have imagined it back then. You've only just come home. You don't know her well enough yet. She's not that kind of person."

We had barely spoken a few words before Mia appeared.

She sneered. "Ha! Mom was just downstairs talking about how close the two of you are and asked me to come up and chat with you. I didn't expect to find you up here badmouthing her."

Mia was still in college, and her personality was much more impulsive. Linda had used her as someone to gather information, yet she had no idea.

I did not hesitate either. I immediately pulled Caelum and Hannah into a fight with her.

Mia gritted her teeth and snapped, "You start throwing punches after just a few words? You're such a country bumpkin, you backwater hi-"

The next second, her expression changed sharply as her fist froze in midair.

[Mia is still the easiest to use. She's just a naive and foolish college student, after all.]

[I wonder what they are plotting, but it doesn't look like anything good. I should go check it out myself.]

The moment Linda appeared on the stairs, Mia's expression darkened.

She looked at us. "What happened? Hannah, Mia, you're not allowed to bully your brothers! Let go, all of you. What do you think you're doing?"

Hannah and Mia ignored her. After lowering their heads and apologizing, they hurried off.

Linda's expression froze.

As she watched them leave, her face grew even more grim. She seemed unable to understand why their attitudes had suddenly become so abnormal.

She grew uneasy.

The way she looked at Caelum and me became inquisitive.

Meanwhile, Hannah and Mia began intentionally avoiding contact with Linda.

After all, they had lived together for many years, so it was normal that they could not accept right away that their own mother was so different inside and out. But without their help, and with people watching Caelum and me wherever we went, we could not possibly make it down the mountain on foot, as the family estate was built on top of a mountain.

Fortunately, Hannah and Mia avoided her like the plague, which had never happened before.

Linda's intense unease and sense of losing control drove her to think of driving us out. Just like how she had mercilessly abandoned me behind everyone's back when I was just newly born.

She began targeting me.

She took me to upper-class banquets but deliberately gave me George's old formal suits to wear, making people laugh at me.

When we went to celebrate the birthday of the Queen family's matriarch, she deliberately bought white lilies, which were usually used for funerals, and blamed me for it. The Queen family drove me out on the spot, stripping me of all dignity.

She thought this would destroy my confidence and make me cower in my room every day, just like Caelum. She did not expect me to remain perfectly calm, as if nothing had happened.

She finally could not stand it anymore.

That day, Caelum and I went downstairs.

We saw Linda standing thoughtfully in front of a blue vase taller than herself.

George had asked my mentor for it.

The vase was placed in the southeast corner of the house. It was said to ward off evil and misfortune. After being enchanted by my mentor, it could protect the family, and by extension, the company, for a century.

This was one of the conditions George had agreed to before bringing me back.

Linda only knew that George valued the vase, but she did not know why. There was a glint in her eyes, and she reached out to push the vase.

"No!" I shouted in alarm.

I rushed downstairs in a panic, only to meet with her smile. Then, she fell into the shards, the sharp fragments cutting her arm open and staining the shards red with her blood.

I froze. "It's over..."

If there had been no blood, the vase could probably still be saved. However, once it came into contact with blood, there might even be backlash from the enchantment.

When Linda saw my expression, a smile formed on her lips.

Then, she cried out, "Silas! I love you so much! Why did you scare me and make me fall..."

Mia heard the commotion and ran over. Her face looked grim, but this time, she did not immediately blame me. She only watched Linda quietly.

Seeing that her daughter was not speaking up for her, panic flickered across Linda's face.

Then, she heard the sound of a car returning.

She had planned everything. Today was the day my father, George, and my eldest sister, Olivia, would return from their business trip, and Hannah had gone to pick them up. They had just arrived home.

When the front door opened, she cried even louder.

George looked at the shattered pieces on the floor as if he could already see the terrifying sight of his company collapsing in an instant. His eyes widened with rage, and the veins in his neck bulged as he roared, "What exactly happened here?!"