Chapter 1Shattered Fairytales: The Heiress Who Gave Up

I am a patient in a vegetative state. Before I jumped off a building, I carried a specific title: the fake heiress.

Once, the world revolved around me. But when the true heiress returned, I became the cuckoo that stole the dove's nest.

My dad guarded his assets against me, my mom asked me to move out, my older brother called me a thief, and my fiancé broke off our engagement entirely.

My sins were grave, my crimes unforgivable. I had nothing left to compensate them with, except my one and only life.

But I couldn't even jump off a building right. Instead of dying, I turned myself into a vegetable.

Lying in this bed, trapped in a living death, my still-conscious mind heard my former family weeping: "Harper, please wake up. We misunderstood you..."

But what they didn't know was that I would never wake up.

How could someone who had abandoned every single ounce of their will to live ever wake up?

* * *

I lay in the hospital bed, completely paralyzed. I couldn't do anything but breathe.

My attempt to jump off the building had failed, leaving me in a vegetative state. But my hearing remained intact. I could hear every sound around me.

I heard the quiet, hollow emptiness of my hospital room. Only the footsteps of doctors and nurses echoed back and forth.

Oh, one girl did come to visit me. Her name was Chloe Kensington.

I used to be Chloe Kensington, too. Once upon a time.

Now, that name belonged to her, and I had changed mine to Harper Miller.

After all, she was the real heiress, and I was the fake one. She had been taken by my biological parents and suffered through a life of hardship, while I stayed in the Kensington estate, enjoying a life of luxury and endless privilege.

Yet now, lying in this hospital, she was the only one who came to see me.

She sat by my bed, using a cotton swab to moisten my dry lips. "I'm going abroad. I never intended for this drama to turn into a tragedy. Harper, get better soon. Go home. I don't blame you anymore..."

I genuinely couldn't move. If I could, I would have smiled a bitter smile.

Even if she didn't blame me, I could never go home.

The people in that house were no longer the family who loved me deeply. Aside from me, no one even remembered that we once loved each other.

The turning point happened one day when my brother ran into a girl who looked exactly like him. She even had the same signature red birthmark by her eye that ran in my father's bloodline.

Feeling an inexplicable connection, my brother brought her home. When my parents saw her, they were stunned. They looked at her, then looked at me—who bore little resemblance to anyone in the family—and fell into a deep silence.

A few days later, a DNA test declared my true identity: a fake heiress.

My biological parents’ last name was Miller. Years ago, my biological mother had given birth in the same hospital, on the exact same day as my adoptive mother. Before discharge, my adoptive dad had gotten drunk at a business dinner, and my adoptive mom was distracted talking to a cosmetic consultant about postpartum recovery. The Millers were busy with God knows what, and in the confusion, the babies were swapped.

As the Kensington empire grew, I was spoiled and pampered. Meanwhile, the true daughter of the Kensington family struggled to make ends meet in the Miller household.

I was raised as a delicate little princess. Chloe Kensington, on the other hand, fought her way up, eventually landing an internship at my dad's company while finishing her studies. That was where my brother found her.

The rest of the story was a cliché. The princess returned to the palace. And the wicked maid who stole her nest—who still shamelessly craved their affection—was humiliated until she was utterly broken and discarded.

The only deviation from the script was that the wicked maid was supposed to be executed. Instead, I survived, turning into a vegetable, dragging out a miserable existence where I couldn't even end my own life.

This was perhaps an even crueler punishment.

I heard Chloe say, "Harper, get well soon. Mom, Dad, and Carter are waiting for you at home."

She fell silent for a moment before adding, "By the way, Liam is going abroad with me. Did he come to see you? He probably told you, right?"

I felt my breathing stall. It was as if my nervous system was intentionally trying to shut down my respiratory functions.

Liam was my fiancé. If nothing had happened, we would have been officially engaged next month.

The suffocation caused my heart rate to fluctuate wildly, and the monitor began to beep frantically.

Chloe quickly ran to get the doctor. The doctor rushed in, checked the monitors, and sighed. "Given her current condition, whenever her bodily functions start to recover even slightly, it’s as if the patient is using her own subjective consciousness to cut off her own life force. She immediately starts failing again."

The doctor spoke solemnly. "You are her sister, right? Why haven't your parents visited even once? Right now, I suspect the patient simply doesn't want to wake up. If this continues, she will..."

I heard Chloe freeze, suddenly panicking. "I'll go home right now and tell my parents and brother!"

She turned and ran. But I felt the urge to laugh.

They wouldn't come.

They hated me to death. I was a thief.