Chapter 1The World Is One Big Fake Show

The world is just one big, hastily assembled stage, and everyone is faking it.

And me? I’m shockingly mediocre.

My dad is a Wall Street tycoon, yet I can barely do simple addition. My mom is an Oscar-winning actress, and I look like the definition of "plain." My brother held his first solo art exhibition at age four, while at age five, I was still chasing him around drooling.

Even our housekeeper, Mrs. Higgins, and our butler, Mr. Chen, were secretly retired legends in their fields.

Luckily, they all spoiled me rotten. I eventually made peace with my mediocrity...

Until one day, a viral "genius girl" showed up at our door, demanding I hand over my spot as the real heiress.

Great. The other shoe I've been waiting for my whole life finally dropped.

* * *

I’ve always felt like an alien in this family.

My dad, Richard Sterling, is a financial shark. My mom, Isabella Sterling, is an international movie star.

But me? Average brain, average face.

They say extremes breed opposites, and my brother, Ethan, is proof. He’s the complete package: launched his art career at four, joined MENSA at eight, and by fifteen was voted one of the "Top 10 Most Handsome Faces" globally.

I wanted to be jealous. I wanted to crawl in the shadows and hiss.

But in the end, I chose self-acceptance. After all, the gene pool can’t always produce winners.

I was living my best "eat, sleep, do nothing" life.

Until she showed up. The viral genius, Luna Davis.

"The nurse at the hospital confessed on her deathbed! We were switched at birth. I am the true Miss Sterling!"

"Look at you! You're so... ordinary. How could you possibly be their daughter?"

"Today, I'm taking back everything that belongs to me!"

Luna stood alone in our foyer, but she had the energy of an entire army.

Her confidence was so overwhelming that my whole family—no, me and the other family of three—fell into deep contemplation.

My cold, distant Dad: "A switch?"

My glamorous Mom: "How would I know? I was too busy counting stretch marks. Didn't we hand the baby to Arthur?"

My stoic brother, Ethan, stayed silent for three seconds before coldly dropping: "I was three."

Mom paused, then tried to deflect again.

"But you loved holding the baby! You kept asking if you could share your 'new toy' with your little girlfriend, Nana."

"Nana wasn't my girlfriend."

"But she called me 'Mom' every time she saw me..."

I was sitting on pins and needles. Luna didn't look too happy either.

Seeing Mom and Ethan getting sidetracked, I stood up. "Dad, Mom, Ethan, look at my face. Then look at hers. Don't we look more like a family?"

I pointed at myself. I touched my painfully average face and nodded in agreement with Luna's assessment.

Growing up, Ethan got compliments like "Handsome," "Striking," "A carbon copy of Richard."

Me? I got: "She looks very... healthy."

Depressing.

"And I've been a straight-A student my whole life! Top of the class! But from what I hear, she has always been at the bottom. She even bought her college degree!" Luna continued presenting her evidence.

I lowered my head in shame.

Since kindergarten, Ethan was always undeniably first. I was always indisputably last.

One teacher didn't believe I was hopeless and tried to tutor me privately. She ended up in the ICU with a stress-induced migraine.

In her delirium, she held my hand and whispered: "What is the relationship between X and Y...?"

I felt guilty. So, the night before the next exam, I stayed up all night memorizing the entire math textbook.

The result? I became the first student in school history to fill the entire exam paper with correct formulas but get a score of zero because none of them applied to the questions. I went viral for a week.

Thinking back on this, I looked at my parents and brother with a heavy heart.

"Is it possible... that maybe you guys really are a family?"

Dad fell into deep thought. Mom looked pensive. Ethan's gaze turned heavy.

Luna was still shouting: "Mom, Dad, don't you believe me? I've been suffering out there for eighteen years! Now that I'm back, how can you not believe me?"

Just as the atmosphere reached a boiling point, Mrs. Higgins, who had been standing in the shadows, spoke up.

"Sir, Madam, Ethan, Miss Mia... actually, there is a technology called a DNA test."