My Dead Daughter is His Live Target

The first year after I died, my daughter, Lily, was diagnosed with a terminal illness. Director Davis from the orphanage called Nicholas, telling him they needed half a million dollars for her treatment.

He was holding Barbara, his childhood friend, absently toying with her hair. His face was cold as ice.

"No treatment. If she dies, she dies. She can just go keep her short-lived mom company."

In the end, Lily died at the orphanage because there was no money for her medical care. Director Davis called Nicholas again. He sounded annoyed.

"Oh? Is she really dead this time?"

It was a full day after Lily died before Nicholas finally showed up at the orphanage, sauntering in without a care.

He looked even colder than when Id last seen him a year ago. In his hands were bags full of baby supplies.

My heart twisted. No wonder he was so late. It was because his current wife was already pregnant with his child.

He saw Director Davis and snapped, "Wheres Lilys body? Weren't you calling me non-stop to come and deal with it?"

The director, who had been wiping away tears, froze. She led him to the room where Lilys body lay.

Nicholas walked over, pulled back the white sheet, glanced at it, and then chuckled.

"Not bad. This prop looks pretty real. Chloe must have paid you a lot to put on this act with the orphanage, right?"

The directors anger flared. "Mr. Nicholas, Lily is truly gone. If I didn't need a relative's signature for the cremation, I wouldn't have bothered you."

Nicholas ignored her and spoke directly to Lily, who was still covered by the sheet.

"Looks like you weren't that important to your mom either! You're dead, and she still won't show up."

My nose stung.

Nicholas, its not that I dont want to show up. Its because I'm already dead.

I died a year ago.

But for some reason, my soul stayed by Lily's side after death.

Countless nights, I watched Lily convulse in pain, kneeling on the ground and calling my name. Yet, I was powerless.

And her biological father? He was busy creating a new life with his childhood friend.

Lily didn't seem like his flesh and blood; she was more like trash he'd tried every possible way to discard.

"Since she's dead, I can take her body, right?"

Nicholas's words pulled me back from my thoughts.

He walked out the front door, answered a phone call, and then tossed Lilys body into a garbage can. He even remembered to tell his bodyguards to buy some hungry dogs from a pet store.

I was stunned. After I registered what was happening, I immediately flew into the garbage can, frantically trying to pull Lily's body out.

He wanted Lily to be torn to pieces!

But no matter how hard I tried, I could only watch helplessly as drooling, vicious dogs slowly closed in on Lilys body.

Nicholass lips curled into a cold smile. He murmured, "Trash belongs in the trash can."

"Chloe, why would I want your discards?"

I screamed in despair, "Nicholas, this is our Lily!"

The stray dogs pounced on Lily, tearing at her relentlessly. When cold blood splattered onto the ground, a flicker of confusion crossed Nicholas's eyes, but it vanished instantly.

"The props are quite convincing, but even if this little brat was truly dead, I wouldn't feel a thing."

"Just like your dead mother, you should have been out of my life long ago."

Nicholas only looked away, satisfied, when the hungry dogs had devoured Lilys remains, leaving nothing intact.

Just then, Director Davis rushed out of the orphanage. She was speechless at the sight.

She pointed a trembling finger at Nicholas. "You... you"

Nicholas looked at the director with icy eyes, a confident smirk on his face.

"Tell Chloe that if she wants custody, she shouldn't hide. This trick of using the little brat to fake her death wont fool me."

"My mother's anniversary is coming up. If she doesn't show, I don't mind making sure this little brat is truly dead."

He emphasized "truly dead" with chilling intensity.

Others might think he was joking. What father could be so cruel to his own daughter?

But I knew. He meant every word.

I suddenly felt a strange relief, a twisted gratitude that Lily was truly dead.

Before Director Davis could speak, Nicholas left, surrounded by his bodyguards.

My soul followed him.

The bodyguard drove to a villa. As soon as they reached the entrance, a woman with a visibly pregnant belly ran out to meet him.

Her figure felt incredibly familiar.

It wasn't until she walked up and embraced Nicholas that I remembered who she was.

Barbara. Nicholas's childhood friend.

During the years Nicholas and I were together, she had humiliated me countless times.

She'd told me to stay away from Nicholas, even calling me a low-class nobody to my face, saying my meager salary wasn't even enough for one of Nicholas's meals.

I ignored her, but she kept showing up at the hospital every few days, making appointments at my clinic.

She spread rumors, accusing me of being an incompetent doctor, and even arranged for someone to try and cripple my surgeon's hands.

When Nicholas found out, he immediately had his company heavily suppress Barbara's family business, vowing that if she ever bothered me again, he wouldn't hesitate to bankrupt her family.

Barbara's father had no choice but to keep her locked up.

And now, Barbara first asked about Nicholas's whereabouts that day with concern.

When Lily was mentioned, Nicholas's striking eyes turned cold.

"My bodyguard already told me Lily is perfectly healthy. This is all just a trick Chloe pulled, in league with the orphanage, to deceive me."

Barbara's face showed a hint of guilt. She tentatively asked, "What if she really died?"

My heart felt clutched by a giant hand as I also stared at Nicholas.

The old Nicholas, the one I knew, would lose sleep over Lily even just sneezing.

He used to say that Lily and I were the most important people in his life.

But now, Nicholas's face was cold, and his tone was impatient.

"Then I'll hire a band and celebrate for three days and three nights."

The next morning, Barbara suddenly had stomach pains, and Nicholas rushed her to the hospital.

At the hospital, Barbara was wheeled into the delivery room. After several hours, she gave birth to a girl who was the spitting image of Nicholas.

Nicholas's gaze softened as he held the baby in his arms, refusing to let go for a moment. He looked exactly like he did when I first gave birth to Lily.

But now, he had given his fatherly love to another child.

His phone rang on the bedside table.

As soon as Nicholas answered, his secretary's hurried voice came through the line.

"Mr. Nicholas, I apologize, but there's an urgent company matter that requires your attention."

After talking for a while, Nicholas placed the baby next to Barbara, his voice gentle.

"Be a good girl, or Daddy won't spare you just because you're small."

These words struck me like a lightning bolt, making my ethereal form tremble slightly.

Barbara's child was Nicholas's?

How could this be? Why Barbara? She was the one who caused your mother's death!

"Nicholas!" I screamed, rushing to his ear.

But how could he hear a dead person's voice? I gradually calmed down.

As Nicholas was about to leave, a doctor walked in, holding a stack of files, a worried frown on his face.

"Mr. Nicholas, our examination shows that the baby has a heart condition."

"If she doesn't get a heart transplant before she's three, she likely won't survive to adulthood."

"But finding a suitable heart is extremely difficult, and it needs to be from a child under ten, otherwise there's a high risk of rejection."

The doctor's words cast a dark cloud over everyone in the room.

Nicholas's face first showed shock at the news of his child's illness, then it relaxed.

"Leave this to me. I have a way."

After the doctor left, he gestured for a bodyguard to come in.

"Bring Lily here."

I instantly understood his plan. He wanted to use Lily's heart for this new child.

The bodyguard received the order and immediately left.

Nicholas looked out the window, his eyes fierce. He muttered to himself, "Chloe, you and your daughter owe me this. A life for a life. Fair enough, isn't it?"

I gave a bitter laugh. I couldn't even explain when I was alive that I wasn't responsible for his mother's death. How could I expect him to believe me now that I was dead?

After all, all the evidence surrounding his mother's death had pointed to me.

Nicholas had believed it.

On the day of his mother's funeral, Nicholas had pinned me in front of her urn, forcing my head down, hitting the ground again and again.

That day, he held his mother's urn in his arms, his eyes bloodshot, staring at me with pure hatred.

"Chloe, we're enemies to the death."

From that day on, I transformed from Nicholas's most beloved person to his most hated.

He tormented me endlessly, and he tormented Lily, who resembled me so much.

Lily was only a few years old, yet she was forced to do housework and hard labor. If anything displeased him, she would be severely disciplined with a ruler.

I had considered divorcing him and taking Lily, but he refused.

He even threatened that if I dared to mention divorce again, he would break Lily's legs.

When he saw the despair in my eyes, he would chuckle, pinch my chin, and sneer, "Chloe, feeling hopeless? You deserve every bit of it."

But I truly wasn't responsible for his mother's death, even though his mother had never liked me, believing I wasn't good enough for Nicholas.

Even though she humiliated me in every setting, calling me a worthless tramp, a shameless whore.

Even when she slapped me in front of the media.

I never resented his mother, because I always remembered that Nicholas, to marry me, had not hesitated to break ties with his mother, on whom he depended so much.

But his mother died at the hands of someone he loved. How could he not break down?

In the evening, the bodyguard returned.

When Nicholas heard that Lily hadn't been found, he immediately swept the fruit from the coffee table onto the floor.

"What?"

"Lily has already been taken by Chloe."

My skeptical gaze fell on the bodyguard.

If I hadn't been right in front of him, I never would have imagined how much blame was being heaped on me.

During Barbara's postpartum recovery, Nicholas directly hired a private investigator to find my whereabouts.

Upon receiving the information, he immediately rushed to that location.

He had his men kick the door in, then walked in unhurriedly.

"Chloe, hand over Lily, now."

Seeing no response, he sat on the sofa, waved his hand, and sent the bodyguards to look for me.

By the time the bodyguards reported they hadn't found me, his face had turned dark.

He called the private investigator directly. Upon learning that this was the last place I had been seen, he gritted his teeth and said, "Chloe, I dare you to hide like a rat in a sewer forever."

Nicholas, I'm not hiding! I don't need to hide! I'm standing right in front of you, but you can't see me!

The sky slowly darkened.

Nicholas's face was grim, his eyes fixed on the doorway.

Finally, a sound came from the entrance, and soon, Gregg's figure appeared.

When he saw Nicholas through the bodyguards outside the door, a flicker of hatred crossed his eyes.

"What are you doing at my house?"

Nicholas sneered, "What am I doing? Of course, I'm looking for Chloe and Lily."

Gregg saw something and chuckled. "You've probably come to the wrong place, haven't you?"

"They're both dead. You haven't forgotten, have you?"

"You think a fake dummy can fool me? I'm not an idiot. Hand them over right now."

A trace of pain flashed across Gregg's face, his eyes, like stagnant water, coldly fixed on Nicholas.

"I told you, Chloe and Lily are both dead. You even went to retrieve Lily's body yourself."

Nicholas grabbed Gregg by the collar, staring intently at him.

"Are you taking me for a fool?"

"Lily cherished her life so much, how could she die?"

"I'm warning you, make her come out and see me immediately. Her worthless life was always meant to repay me!"

Just then, his phone rang.

Nicholas saw the incoming call, put it on speaker, and scoffed, "Chloe, what? Finally willing to show yourself?"

But it was the private investigator's voice on the other end.

"Mr. Nicholas, I learned through an informant that Ms. Chloe died a year ago."