Chapter 838

Evelyn Ross opened her eyes to find herself lying on an unfamiliar sofa.

She was in a living room decorated in a European style.

A crystal chandelier cast a soft, refracted light.

She sat up abruptly.

She had fallen asleep on the ship.

Now she was in a small villa.

Someone had drugged her.

Mason Evans lay on the carpet nearby.

He was rubbing his eyes as he sat up, his face mirroring her own confusion.

They exchanged a glance.

Both saw wariness in the other's eyes.

"Awake?"

A sharp female voice came from the direction of the staircase.

Evelyn turned to look.

A woman in a wheelchair was being slowly pushed down the stairs.

Her profile was breathtakingly beautiful.

Her skin was pale, her features delicate and exquisite like a painting.

But when the wheelchair turned, revealing the other half of her face—

Evelyn's breath caught.

It was a face severely disfigured by burns.

The skin was twisted and fused.

Where one eye should have been, there was only a dark hollow.

Her nose was almost gone.

Her lips were badly deformed.

The entire face looked as if it had been deliberately destroyed by scalding.

Evelyn clenched her fists.

Was this Grace Sterling's foster mother?

Was this the face a three-year-old Grace saw when she left?

The wheelchair stopped in the center of the living room.

The woman fixed her one good eye on Evelyn.

The corner of her mouth twisted into a grotesque smile.

"What? Scared speechless?"

Evelyn did not answer.

She wasn't sure if this was a test.

The woman snorted with contempt.

"This is the fate of a loser. Grace Sterling, if you fail to secure the heir position, you'll be locked away here to grow old too."

She raised a thin, bony finger and pointed at her own ruined face.

"And they'll keep sending men to you. Even though I can no longer bear children, they still insist on trying. Ha. The Sterling Family never wastes a single pawn."

Evelyn lowered her gaze.

So the injury came later.

"Cat got your tongue?"

The woman's voice suddenly rose sharply.

"You finally come back, and you can't even speak? I know—you found your birth mother, didn't you?"

She suddenly burst into wild, hysterical laughter.

"You hate me! You hate me for taking you in all those years ago! But I was saving your life! If not for me, you would have been thrown into the sea to feed the fish, just like your sister!"

The wheelchair lurched forward a few steps.

"The Sterling Family shows no mercy to traitors. Your birth mother, Sophia Ashcroft, has been captured. Hahaha..."

The woman stared intently at Evelyn.

"Do you want to see her?"

Evelyn finally spoke.

"Where is she?"

Smash!

A teacup was hurled violently at her.

Evelyn sidestepped.

The porcelain shattered at her feet, fragments scattering everywhere.

"Ungrateful wretch!"

The woman trembled with rage.

"Not a single word of concern for me! Your first question is about her! I raised you for three years, and I mean less to you than the woman who abandoned you?!"

Evelyn looked at the nearly deranged woman before her.

She finally understood why her sister never came back.

This home was truly suffocating.

Evelyn took a deep breath and stepped forward, placing a hand on the woman's shoulder.

"Enough."

Her voice was calm.

"You haven't had an easy life. I can see that. So I'm trying—if I become the heir, will your life improve?"

The woman was stunned.

A flicker of disbelief passed through her one good eye.

"You... you want to compete?"

Her voice suddenly trembled.

"You never wanted to before. Is it for your birth mother? Of course. Blood is blood. No matter how long I raised you, it was useless."

There was actually a hint of grievance in her words.

Evelyn was silent for a moment.

"Did I resent you when I was little?"

The woman turned her face away.

"You didn't know I wasn't your birth mother then. At most, you thought I was too strict and didn't like talking to me... You left when you were three. You were always quiet and withdrawn. Who knew what you were thinking?"

"I don't resent you."

Evelyn said softly.

"Then why didn't you ever come back to see me?"

"I can't swim."

The woman whipped her head back around, glaring at her.

"Stupid! All these years and you still haven't learned! When I threw you in the water as a child, you cried your eyes out in terror. I heard you almost drowned this time!"

She sneered again.

"For your birth mother, you'd even risk your life. How filial."

Evelyn: "..."

This jealousy was endless.

She looked around.

The villa was exquisitely decorated, yet it exuded a lifeless, stagSterlingt air.

The sunlight outside the window was bright, but the room felt sealed off by an invisible shroud.

Mason quietly moved closer to her, whispering.

"Sis, what do we do now?"

Evelyn didn't answer.

She looked at the woman in the wheelchair.

"I want to see Sophia Ashcroft."

The woman's expression instantly contorted.

"See her? Fine."

She gave a strange laugh.

"But you must agree to one thing first."

"What is it?"

"Participate in the heir selection tomorrow."

The woman stared at her, a crazed light flashing in her good eye.

"I want you to win. I want you to become the next head of the Sterling Family. And then—"

She spoke each word deliberately.

"—release me from this place."

Evelyn looked at her.

"And if I refuse?"

"Then you will never see your birth mother in this lifetime."

The woman turned her wheelchair, slowly moving back toward the staircase.

"Only I know the location of the Sterling Family dungeon. Without me to guide you, you will never find her."

Her voice echoed in the empty living room.

"Choose, Grace Sterling. Save your birth mother, or continue being a coward."

Evelyn stood still.

Sunlight streamed through the windowpane, casting a bright patch of light on the floor.

But her heart sank, little by little.