With You in Every Dream

My father was a triad boss, my mother a debutante from a powerful elite family. My older brother? He doted on me. My life was so perfect it was the envy of everyone.
So when I found myself reborn, I expected a second round of an even happier life.
But as the nurse carried my newborn self to my father, the man who had always cherished me now merely shot me a cold, indifferent glance.
"You enjoyed all the blessings of being the Cooper family's daughter in your last life," he said. "This time, you should give that place to Evelyn."
Without another word, he handed the nurse a check. "Find a good family to adopt her. Don't ever let her appear before me again."
The nurse carried me out through the hospital's back door, but we hadn't gone far when she was knocked unconscious from behind in a dark alley.
I saw my brother, my familiar, loving brother, lift me from the nurse's arms. I thought he was my savior.
But then he clamped a hand over my mouth and hurried through a series of dim streets, stopping at the back entrance of an underground club.
His eyes were filled with a vicious hatred. "I promised Evelyn," he hissed, "that I would make you suffer in this den of sin, to let you taste what it's like to be dragged through the mud, to be cheapened and despised by men."
...
I lay on the cold ground, my heart feeling as if it were being torn apart. The pain was unbearable.
I didn't understand. Why were my father and brother doing this to me? Just moments ago, in our past life, we were being hunted by our enemies. I was the one who drove the car to lead the pursuers away, plunging off a cliff to my death to save them.
And now, their first act upon being reborn was to cast me aside for some girl named Evelyn, even throwing me into a brothel for her sake.
But I had never done anything to harm Evelyn!
I closed my eyes, a lump forming in my throat, but the tears wouldn't come.
"Hey, what's a little baby doing here?"
A small head poked out of the darkness. From the voice, it sounded like a boy of about five or six. I felt a small finger poke my cheek.
"Why aren't you moving? Are you dead?"
His poking was annoying. I opened my eyes and stared at him, my gaze empty and cold, waiting to see what he would do next.
The boy was thrilled when I opened my eyes. "It's alive!"
He then scooped me up and ran off with a patter of small feet.
He hadn't gone far when a towering man appeared at the end of the dark alley. The boy froze, instinctively turning to flee, but the man was too fast, leaping in front of him to block his path.
A flicker of shock entered my deadened eyes. The man was a highly skilled bodyguard. I had no idea what this little boy had done to offend such a person, but it seemed he was doomed.
But then, the large man spoke, his tone filled with a surprising reverence. "Young Master, the monster you're looking for isn't in this club. Please, I beg you, stop trying to sneak in to find it."
I was speechless. Monster?
"Liar!" the boy retorted, pouting. "If there isn't one, why did Auntie Zhang yell at her husband for coming here to find his 'little demon' every day?"
"Well… that's…" The man was at a loss for words. After a long pause, he gritted his teeth. "Tomorrow, during the day, I'll take you inside through the proper channels. We'll conduct a thorough search for any clues of a demon, alright?"
"No need," the boy said, standing on his tiptoes to hold me up to the man's face. His eyes sparkled. "I found a 'little demon' right here at the club's entrance. When she grows up, whoever makes me mad, I'll have her go and bewitch them!"
My dark, empty eyes met the man's startled gaze. For a moment, I forgot my sorrow, a strange sense of awkwardness washing over me.
Sixteen years passed in a blur.
The little boy who had picked me up had grown into a handsome, refined young man named Adrian Sterling. The man who called him "Young Master" was named Marcus.
For sixteen years, I traveled with them, seeing the breathtaking landscapes of the country and witnessing the full spectrum of human joy and sorrow.
They were a mystery to me, often mentioning an enigmatic "Old Man"—Adrian's grandfather. Yet, in all those sixteen years, they never once went back to visit him.
Three days ago, Adrian received an email. He and Marcus closeted themselves in a room for a long time. When he emerged, he announced, "Grandfather is seriously ill. He wants us to go back and take care of him. The rest of the family is already circling, eyeing his fortune. It looks like it's time for me to go back and claim my inheritance."
Now, sitting in the rattling car, my head was buzzing. A sudden, terrifying thought had struck me.
The story was chillingly similar to that of the legendary godfather who had dominated the country's underworld in my previous life.
Around this same time in my past life, the heirless godfather had suddenly brought home a long-lost grandson to inherit his vast empire, making him the new triad leader of the city. Countless people had tried to curry favor with him, but few ever even managed to see his face.
I pushed down the shock and looked at Adrian, who was engrossed in a file across from me. His face began to merge with the image of the cold, iron-willed young godfather from my memory.
My hands, hidden under my oversized coat, clenched into fists.
In my past life, this man had dismissed me as a "beautiful but useless vase." But in this life...
My first smile, my first step, my first word… he was always there, dancing with excitement. "My sister is a genius! That's my sister!" he'd exclaim, preening like a proud peacock.
The contrast was jarring. How could this boy—who had changed my diapers, begged for breast milk from a neighbor who'd just given birth, fed me, and braided my hair—be the same legendary godfather from my past?
My stare must have been too intense, because Adrian looked up. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the car lurched violently. At the same time, Marcus's anxious voice came from outside. "Something's wrong!"
The next second, Adrian threw himself on top of me. Bullets ripped through the car window, zinging past us, inches from our clothes.
Two cars boxed us in, and men with crowbars wrenched our doors open, exposing us to the attackers. Dozens of men with knives rushed toward us.
But the men in the cars in front of and behind us moved in perfect unison, drawing their own weapons and engaging the assailants. In moments, bodies from both sides lay on the ground.
I drew the short blade from my waist, parrying an attacker's strike, my eyes locked on Marcus in the thick of the fight.
In my past life, I remembered an interview where Adrian had mourned a bodyguard with the surname Sterling. My heart leaped into my throat. Over these sixteen years, Marcus had treated me like his own daughter. I couldn't let anything happen to him.
I kicked away the man in front of me and moved closer to Marcus.
But just as I was a few feet away, his face contorted in horror. "Watch out!" he screamed, and then lunged toward Adrian.
Three attackers were surrounding Adrian, and a bullet was speeding directly toward his heart.
The next instant, Marcus tackled Adrian to the ground. At the same moment, the three attackers were neutralized by a group of "passersby" who seemed to appear from nowhere.
Adrian looked at Marcus, who was clutching his chest on the ground, and his eyes turned bloodshot with rage. But the danger wasn't over. There was no time for grief; he had to keep fighting.
Just then, a massive convoy of cars, led by a luxury sedan, approached. The bodyguards in the cars saw the fight and immediately joined the fray, quickly subduing the remaining attackers.
After taking down the last of them, I walked over to Marcus and nudged him with my foot. "Stop playing dead. Get up and clean this mess."
Marcus's eyes flew open, a dazed look on his face.
I pointed to the body of a shot attacker nearby. "That bullet never hit you. I grabbed one of them and used him as a shield for you."
Marcus sat up, patting his chest and back in disbelief. "I don't know why," he muttered, "but I really felt like I should have been dead..." He then met Adrian's crimson-eyed gaze and, remembering his young master's anguish, guiltily looked away.
Adrian, however, looked from the massive, two-hundred-pound body of the dead attacker to me, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I will never again say that you're too strong to be ladylike... Also, don't you like butterfly knives? I'll have one custom-made for you!"
"No need for that." I grinned, pulling several hundred-pound metal rods from under the wrecked car and casually hoisting one onto my shoulder.
Adrian felt his vision go dark. His cute, delicate little sister had just transformed into a female Hulk.
Marcus, on the other hand, looked at the car's tires with a pang of guilt. And here he'd thought the car was slow because of a malfunction, and had cursed the driver countless times...
I sheepishly dropped the metal rod.
In my past life, I had also been born with unusual strength, a fact that had earned me ridicule from the other debutantes. So I had hidden it, pretending to be a delicate lady who couldn't lift a thing.
"Sir, I am Evelyn Cooper, the daughter of the CEO of the Cooper Corporation."
A slender hand pushed open the door of the luxury sedan, and a gentle female voice floated out. "It seems you are also heading to the capital. Why don't we travel together? If there's any more trouble, my bodyguards can assist you."
At the words "daughter of the CEO of the Cooper Corporation," my heart clenched. A beautiful young woman, helped out of the car by her nanny, had a striking red mole near the corner of her right eye.
There was no mistake. This was the "Evelyn" my father and brother had spoken of. In my past life, my father had brought her home when she was ten, claiming she was the orphaned daughter of an old friend.
After she joined our family, she was treated exactly like me, the only daughter of the house. I had never resented her, and had treated her like a real sister.
That is, until I was sixteen and discovered she was having an affair with the heir of the Windsor Group—my fiancé.
Even then, I didn't act on personal grudges. I simply told my parents. They were furious. They broke off my engagement and kicked Evelyn out of the house. I never saw her again.
In this life, it seemed she had gone from Evelyn Locke to Evelyn Cooper.
Evelyn didn't notice my strange reaction. She smiled at Adrian, her face radiating a confidence and poise that was a stark contrast to the timid, cautious girl she had been when she first joined our family, and the hysterical mess she had become when her affair was exposed.
Adrian thanked her. "Thank you for your help, Miss Cooper. We are being pursued by enemies and wouldn't want to involve you. If we can reach the city center safely, I will be sure to pay you a visit to express my gratitude."
Evelyn tried to persuade him to travel with her, but seeing his firm refusal, she gracefully bid him farewell and departed.
I stared after her convoy, a cold smile playing on my lips.
Evelyn's appearance here was no coincidence.
But why her? Why not my father or brother? If they wanted to form an alliance with the future triad kingpin, they should have come themselves.
Yet they had sent Evelyn...
It seemed my dear father and brother had much grander ambitions than I had thought.

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