Chapter 360: One Shouldn’t Have Such Double Standards

Chapter 360: Chapter 360: One Shouldn’t Have Such Double Standards

"Even if I were to choose someone to hate, it should be you, not her! Or in your eyes, am I just some country bumpkin from a remote place, a naive girl who doesn’t understand the ways of the world? A single-celled organism with a one-track mind, unable to see something so plain and simple? Someone who can only obsess over how my fourth sister took my place, making me the perfect pawn for you to use?"

Cassandra Lynch’s face was deathly pale, and she looked ready to collapse. "I... I didn’t mean that. I didn’t want this either. When it happened back then, I was just a newborn baby. I had no choice in the matter. If I could, I wouldn’t want to take someone else’s place, to steal someone else’s life, but what could I do? Knowing the truth is painful for me too, but it truly wasn’t my intention."

Had it been some clueless man standing before Cassandra Lynch, he probably would have been captivated by her damsel-in-distress act. He would have been generous with someone else’s forgiveness, telling her it wasn’t her fault and that she should be pardoned.

Unfortunately, the person standing before her was Arabella Donovan. Not only was she completely unmoved by this feigned pitiable display, her expression was cold, and she even looked like she wanted to roll her eyes.

’Tsk, tsk, tsk. Just look at this pure, innocent, and totally affected white lotus act. ’You didn’t know; you didn’t know anything.’ Right, right. Someone else *forced* you to live the good life. You took all the benefits, while everyone else carried the blame and suffering. Your specialty is outsourcing all responsibility, living a stress-free life.’

"Miss Wagner, have you forgotten what you just said? Do you need me to help you recall? You said that if it weren’t for the baby swap, I wouldn’t have been abandoned and left to suffer for so many years. You went on and on, but when the topic finally came around to you, it suddenly became, ’I was just a child back then, I’m innocent too, you can’t blame me.’

"But when it’s about my fourth sister, it’s ’She enjoyed years of a rich young lady’s life in my place, she owes me, she hurt me, so she deserves my hatred for a lifetime and must compensate me for a lifetime.’ Miss Wagner, I don’t know what your personal standards are, but in this world, even a three-year-old knows that you can’t have such blatant double standards."

Cassandra Lynch’s birth mother’s surname was Wagner. She only had a common-law marriage with Cassandra’s biological father, not a formal written one. When Holly Wagner took the infant Arabella back to her hometown and abandoned her with her parents, she gave the baby her own surname and a throwaway first name.

Logically, when Cassandra Lynch was kicked out of the Lynch Family and everyone returned to their rightful places, she should have changed her surname back to her birth mother’s. But she seemed to understand that once she changed her name, her connection to the Lynch Family would be completely severed. From then on, she would be the daughter of two low-life human traffickers, and she would never again be able to reach for that glamorous, brand-name-filled good life.

Therefore, although her household registration was moved out of the Lynch Family’s, she stubbornly refused to change her surname.

Arabella Donovan’s two utterances of "Miss Wagner" had precisely struck Cassandra Lynch’s darkest, most insecure, and most despised nerve. It was truly a fatal psychological blow, a killing strike.

Her defenses shattered, Cassandra Lynch’s face finally lost that fragile look from moments before—the one where she had to gasp for air after every few words as if she might stop breathing at any moment. In its place was a face as dark as ink and a sharp gaze that looked like it wanted to tear Arabella Donovan limb from limb.

’So she can’t keep up the act anymore? That look is like she wants to eat me alive. I’m so, so scared! Not. I’m just kidding. Nyah nyah nyah~~~’

The atmosphere was clearly heavy, but a certain someone’s inner monologue was a bit too lively. It left the two families not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and they couldn’t help but feel relieved that only they could hear her thoughts. Otherwise, the person opposite her would have lost her composure long ago.

Cassandra Lynch lost her composure for a moment, then gradually calmed down, noticing that the other customers in the café were looking their way because of what Arabella Donovan had just said.

She hastily switched tactics, lowering her head and saying in a tearful voice, "I know... I know it’s all my fault. If it weren’t for my illness, none of this would have happened. You and your sister Eloise wouldn’t have ended up like this.

"It would have been better if I had died from this illness right after I was born. You’re right, I’m just an unwanted, annoying jinx, a walking disaster. I promise... I promise I’ll stay far away from you all from now on and never appear before you again. I... I just wanted to live, that’s all. COUGH COUGH COUGH..."

As Cassandra Lynch spoke, she clutched her chest and began to cough violently, her eyes turning red from the effort, with tears glistening at their corners.

Anyone seeing this scene without knowing the backstory would find it hard not to misunderstand. They would think that Arabella Donovan—a perfectly healthy person—was bullying a weak, frail woman suffering from a serious illness.

Arabella Donovan tried to hold it in but failed, letting out a huge, exasperated eye-roll.

’I knew it. I just knew it. Trying to talk to a self-absorbed, manipulative girl like this—one who’s completely lost in her own world—always ends this way. I’m so done. Just let the world burn.’

The members of the Lynch and Donovan families, who had heard the entire exchange, had complex expressions. This was especially true for the Lynch Family. How had they never noticed this child was so good at acting? Serena was right—their whole family truly had been blind in both eye and heart. They had mistaken a wolf for a rabbit, so it was no wonder they ended up in such a miserable state.

At this point, Arabella Donovan was already starting to regret coming out. She had originally thought she could get some fresh gossip from this trouble-making "protagonist," but it was all just the same old clichés.

She felt like she could predict Cassandra’s second, third, and even final sentences the moment she uttered the first.

’So boring, so boring. If I’d known these were the only tricks up her sleeve, I wouldn’t have bothered coming out. I’d rather be taking a nap than wasting my time watching this performance. The handsome men and beautiful fairies in my dreams are way easier on the eyes than she is.’

Everyone nearby: Pfft...

Although Arabella felt like giving up at any moment, she had no habit of sacrificing herself for the sake of others.

"None of what you just said is an excuse for your mother swapping another family’s child, tearing a family apart, and making them unknowingly raise a sick child that wasn’t theirs. It’s not an excuse for leaving her own healthy child to fend for herself in poverty, or for me having to suffer the world’s judgment on your behalf, all because of your human trafficker parents."

Arabella Donovan stared at Cassandra Lynch, her gaze as sharp as a scalpel, easily capable of piercing through her fake, manufactured shell and exposing all the sordid things hidden inside.

"You want to live. So does that mean other people should have to pay the price for the evil things you and your mother did?"

The moment Arabella Donovan’s voice fell, a clamor of discussion erupted in the café.

"It wasn’t me! It has nothing to do with me! She did it all! I had nothing to do with it! I’m innocent!"

Enduring the pointing and muttering from all directions, Cassandra Lynch finally couldn’t take it anymore. She shot up to flee but was stopped by Arabella, who grabbed her wrist.

"Trying to leave now? Too late! Miss Wagner, did you forget to do some research before you came looking for me? Research on what I did for a living before the Donovan Family found me?"