After transmigrating into the book, I helped my mother reconcile with her divorced husband.

Chapter 267 Favoritism Towards the Adopted Daughter

Two new graves; the one on the left is Miao Han's, and the one on the right is Madam Ye's.

Liu Ying found a letter on Madam Ye, covered in special symbols she couldn't understand. Lu Zhiyuan recognized them; they were coded messages, a message Madam Ye had left for her… or perhaps a message she had left for herself.

Have you ever played online games? You know, those kinds of games where you can register different accounts in the same server and experience different classes. If necessary, you can even team up with yourself; all you need is two computers.

Madam Ye is equivalent to another name of hers.

Outside of the game, she is the assassin Lu Zhiyuan, abandoned by her parents at a young age and sent to an orphanage. She was then adopted by an assassin organization and, through rigorous selection, became a top assassin who roams the world. Ye Bai, her childhood sweetheart who grew up with her, fell into the sea at the moment she was closest to happiness, disappearing without a trace.

She thought the assassin Lu Zhiyuan was real, but what if that Lu Zhiyuan was also fake?

Like a dream within a dream, when you wake up from a dream, you think it was a dream, until you wake up a second time and realize it was a dream within a dream. But who can prove that you've truly woken up, and that you're truly no longer dreaming?

She thought she had only transmigrated into the book once, unaware that she had transmigrated at various points in her life. Perhaps it wasn't transmigrating into the book, but some kind of advanced technology that, while she was in shock, severely injured, and unconscious, placed her consciousness into a system, making her mistakenly believe that she had transmigrated into the book.

Close your eyes and think back carefully.

She woke up in a hospital after falling into the sea and going into shock; it was a foreign hospital, and all the doctors were unfamiliar faces. After she woke up, they conducted a series of tests on her.

She didn't suspect anything, assuming it was just standard hospital procedure. Worried about Ye Bai, she quickly settled the medical bills and left.

During the time she was being hunted by the organization, she was thrown aside by a violent explosion and woke up in a hospital. She was in the burn ward, in a private room. When she asked a nurse, she was told that a kind person had brought her to the hospital and even paid two thousand yuan for her hospital fees. The doctor told her to contact her parents and relatives, saying that further treatment would require a large sum of money.

She said she was an orphan and that her parents had left her a considerable amount of money to pay for her medical expenses. Her phone and bank cards were destroyed in the explosion, and she needed a new phone, a new SIM card, or to get a replacement bank card to pay her bills.

Normally, a hospital would suspect she was a fraudster and would have someone verify her information. But the nurses at that hospital didn't. They quickly bought her a cell phone and replaced her SIM card.

She thought she had met kind people and a kind hospital, and that the hospital was helping her because they were worried she wouldn't have the money to pay for her follow-up treatment. Looking back, everything seemed strange.

From her burns to her reconstructive surgery, she stayed in the hospital for almost a year, developing a superficial friendship with the doctors and nurses. She cooperated fully with all their diagnoses, examinations, and even blood tests. If the hospital was a sham, if they had ulterior motives during that process, she would indeed have had no chance of detecting it.

The best course of action now is to start the investigation as Madam Ye suggested.

Like her, Madam Ye was also a transmigrator from a book. The original owner of the body was named Ayu, and she lived with her maternal grandmother on a country estate. Her father's surname was Qin, and he was a county magistrate who came from humble beginnings. Her mother was a merchant who inherited her maternal grandfather's business.

My mother deeply loved my father and was a typical romantic. Wherever my father went to serve as an official, she would go there to do business, always following her husband's lead.

The year A-Yu came of age, her father sent a letter through a messenger, wanting to bring her to his side. It was late autumn, a light rain was falling, and she waited for two hours at the gate of the manor, holding an umbrella, before a carriage finally came swaying along.

Before the carriage had even come to a complete stop, a little girl of similar age jumped off.

The little girl's name was Aruo. Her parents had found her as a beggar on the street. Because she resembled Aruo in some ways, they adopted her, though to outsiders she was the daughter of the county magistrate. Her parents explained that they kept Aruo because their daughter was often away, to ease their longing for her.

She couldn't understand why, if she missed her daughter, she didn't bring her to live with her, but instead adopted a daughter who only resembled her a little.

Did they know that their biological daughter had passed away six months ago? She possessed the original owner's memories and knew everything the original owner had experienced. From a young age, she longed for her parents to return and take her away. She read, learned to read, and wrote letters to her father in her childish handwriting. She learned to play the piano, to paint, and diligently practiced cooking with her grandmother. She wanted her parents to know that she was a very good, obedient, and wonderful daughter.

Unbeknownst to her, while she diligently studied and learned to read, her parents were taking Aruo on outings, flying kites, and attending temple fairs. While she practiced the piano and painted, Aruo nestled in her mother's arms listening to music. She studied cooking diligently, hoping to one day cook for her parents, but her parents were busy trying to coax their adopted daughter to eat.

Even their return to fetch her was because the Ye family wanted a marriage alliance. Her parents couldn't bear to part with their adopted daughter, Aruo, so they thought of her, their biological daughter who was being raised in the countryside.

The adopted daughter is very thoughtful; you can tell just by looking into her eyes.

She feigned enthusiasm, ran up to Ayu, and took her arm, saying, "Is this Sister Ayu? You're just as beautiful as my parents described. Hello, Sister, my name is Aruo. My father gave me this name, and like you, my surname is Qin."

Through the smug look in her eyes, she knew that the last sentence was said by A-Ruo on purpose.

He subtly pushed her hand away and said calmly, "Little sister, you've misunderstood. My surname isn't Qin!"

Aruo opened her eyes wide, covered her mouth, and said, "Is Sister blaming Father? Because Father didn't come to pick you up sooner, Sister changed your surname?"

A'Ruo's presumptuous words embarrassed everyone.

Ayu's surname is Zhou, which is her mother's surname. This is not because her father is magnanimous, but because he married into the family.

He was a son-in-law of the Zhou family, and the Zhou family paid for his education and examinations. Even after becoming a county magistrate, he was a meager one who only cared about his reputation. His achievements were all built on the Zhou family's money and the money earned by A-Yu's mother. He didn't want people to know these things, didn't want people to know that he had married into the family, and not only did he hide the secret that his wife was a merchant, but he also dared not let people know that his biological daughter's surname was Zhou, not Qin.

Grandmother wanted to explain, but Mother stopped her. She knew Father valued his reputation and didn't want to expose the matter in front of A-Ruo. As she passed A-Yu, she gave her a accusing look.

"How old are you? You can't even say a word!"

It was clearly A'Ruo who couldn't speak properly; she was just telling the truth. Why was she being blamed? Fortunately, she wasn't really A'Yu and wouldn't be hurt by her parents' differential treatment. She looked directly into her mother's eyes and replied calmly, "A'Ruo was personally taught by her parents, so she's naturally different from A'Yu."

Her mother got angry and slapped her, but she caught it firmly.

"Are you angry because I didn't raise you myself? How could you be so insensible? If you were even slightly like Aruo, your father and I wouldn't have left you in the countryside!"

Ayu laughed and let go of her mother's hand: "Am I being unreasonable, or is Mother being too biased? I am clearly Mother's biological daughter, but Mother only has eyes for Aruo. Since I got off the carriage, has Mother asked me if I'm doing well? How long have I been waiting? Am I cold? Has Mother seen that my clothes are already soaked by the rain?"