They Told Me I Was Adopted, I Was The Real One All Along Chapter 09

They Told Me I Was Adopted, I Was The Real One All Along Chapter 09

Without Mia and me, the Whitmore family was like 

a building with its load–bearing walls removed. It 

collapsed. 

Because Dad’s mental state deteriorated, several 

of the Whitmore Group’s core projects suffered 

major failures one after another. 

The cash flow broke down. Lawsuits and 

collection notices piled up. 

In only two months, the father who had once ruled 

the business world became a debtor everyone 

despised. 

The day the estate was seized and auctioned by 

the court, rain fell in sheets. 

Dad pushed Mom’s wheelchair and dragged two battered suitcases as officials escorted them out. 

Mom had completely lost her mind. 

She clutched a filthy stuffed bear. 

It was the one Mia and I had fought over when we 

were six. 

Back then, Mom had dragged me into a corner and 

punished me for it. 

Now she called the bear “Claire” every day and 

insisted that if she held it tightly enough, I couldn’t. 

leave her. 

“Richard, Claire says she’s hungry. Where are we 

going to cook for her?” 

Mom looked up blankly at the curtain of rain. 

Dad didn’t open an umbrella. He let the cold water 

soak him. 

He stared at the sealed iron gate and pulled at the 

corner of his mouth. 

“Come on. I’ll take you to our new home.” 

They moved into a basement smaller than two hundred square feet in a crowded neighborhood. 

It never saw sunlight, and green mold covered the 

walls. 

Whenever it rained, sewage water rose from the 

drains with a nauseating stench. 

Mom, who had once worn only designer clothes. and refused to step on anything but imported 

wool, now slept on a damp wooden board. 

To survive, Dad took a job carrying bricks at a 

nearby construction site. 

The hands that had once signed contracts worth 

millions were now covered in blisters and 

calluses. 

One evening, Dad returned exhausted and found 

Mom gone. 

He searched for three hours through pouring rain. 

At last, he found her in a corner of a recycling yard. 

She was soaked through and clutching an old 

school uniform someone had thrown away. 

It was the same style I’d worn. 

“Claire… Claire has no clothes. She’ll be cold…” 

She crouched in the trash, laughing and crying 

over the sour–smelling uniform. 

Dad ran over and pulled her into his arms. The two 

of them huddled beside the trash and cried like 

children abandoned by the world. 

I floated beneath the roof above them and felt 

nothing. Not even a ripple. 

If only they’d known then what they knew now. 

Every tear they shed was a needle they’d driven 

into my bones and blood. 

As for Mia, her ending was no better. 

She ran away with the stolen jewelry and a 

so–called rich heir. 

The man was a professional con artist. He took. 

every dollar she had and sold her to an illegal. gambling compound overseas to settle his debts. 

People said her life there was worse than a dog’s. 

To stay alive, she endured inhuman torture every 

day. Even death became something she could only 

dream of. 

One day, an old business partner happened to tell 

Dad while he was boiling plain noodles in the 

basement. 

He paused, then sprinkled another handful of 

cheap salt into the pot. 

“Good. Let her die.” 

He spoke softly. 

“A family belongs together in hell.”