My parents worshipped meritocracy. In their eyes, only the most exceptional child deserved to be raised.

Every year they tested me and my adopted sister. Whoever passed got to stay. Whoever failed was sent to a juvenile detention facility.

And I had been failing for five years running.

Because I never measured up, they refused to acknowledge me as their biological daughter. My name wasn't even on their household registration. It was filed under a distant cousin-aunt's family instead.

The sixth time they brought me back, my father slid two sealed exam packets across the table.

"Work hard this time. We don't enjoy sending you back every year either."

Before the test began, a servant accidentally knocked the packet off the corner of the table, and through the torn seal I caught a glimpse of the questions.

My first problem was to prove the Riemann Hypothesis.

On my sister's pink exam sheet, there was a single line.

【On what month and day were Mom and Dad each born? Wrong answers can be retaken with a little coaxing.】

Seeing how pale I'd gone, my mother rushed to explain.

"Your sister's younger. Of course we can't make her questions too hard."

"You're the older one. Excellence is what earns you our recognition. If you can't even prove that much worth, why should we waste resources on you?"

"If you don't pass this year, there's always next time. As long as you try, you can always come home."

I'd waited from grade school all the way through high school, waited until my body was covered in old scars the detention facility left behind.

So it turned out it wasn't that I wasn't good enough. From the very beginning, they'd never meant to let me pass.

My aunt was emigrating next month. A few days ago she'd asked if I wanted to leave with her.

Back then, I still wanted to try one more time.

But now, I gave up.

This family loyalty test ended here.

All I wanted was to never come home again, not for the rest of my life.

——

Seeing me sit there with my head down, saying nothing,

my parents exchanged a glance and, for the first time, spoke with an air of generosity.

"You don't have to go back today."

"Stay home a couple of days. You can return to the facility Monday, the day after tomorrow."

I froze for a moment.

Every time I'd failed a test before, I'd knelt on the floor sobbing, clinging to my mother's leg, begging her to let me stay just a little longer.

I was so afraid of going back. And I missed them so much.

But every single time, they'd pried my fingers loose without a flicker of hesitation.

"A good child follows the rules. Fail the test, and you accept the punishment at once."

"If we let you stay, the test loses all its power to motivate you."

Thinking that in three days I'd be leaving with my aunt,

this was probably the last time I'd ever spend with them.

I nodded in silence.

……

That evening, my parents laid out a whole table of food.

Steamed crab, garlic scallops, spicy crawfish, and the seafood chowder my sister loved best.

At the table, my sister curled her hands in delicately, complaining that the crawfish shells were too hard, that peeling them hurt her fingertips.

My father set down his chopsticks at once, and my mother smiled as she pulled on a pair of gloves.

The two of them peeled shell after shell, and before long the little bowl in front of her was piled high.

Halfway through her meal, my sister shot me a timid glance. "Sis, I'm sorry. I forgot you were home too."

"Mom and Dad forgot to peel some for you. Let me give you a few to try."

A warmth crept into my mother's eyes.

"That's our Susan Pruitt, always so thoughtful."

I lowered my gaze to the shrimp in the bowl and said softly,

"I'm allergic to seafood."

My sister's eyes went red instantly.

My mother's face darkened, and she set down her chopsticks.

"What kind of attitude is that? Susan was kind enough to share her food, and you have to say something like that right in front of her, just to make her feel bad?"

My father frowned at me too.

"An allergy isn't something to be proud of. Your own constitution is weak, and you'd throw it out there to guilt your sister?"

I gripped my chopsticks tight and said nothing.

Mom's voice went colder.

"A truly excellent person keeps even her own body under control."

"If you really want to come home, you should learn to overcome these useless weaknesses instead of using them as excuses to fish for sympathy."

Dad pushed that piece of shrimp toward me again.

"Eat it."

I looked at their eyes, eyes that left no room for refusal, and my throat felt like it was blocked by a stone.

I picked up the shrimp and slowly put it in my mouth.

Susan's tears turned to smiles, and the dinner table filled with laughter and chatter again.

But no one noticed the wide patches of red rash spreading across my skin.

My head swam and my stomach churned. I bolted to the bathroom, gripped the edge of the sink, and threw up for a long time, until I didn't even have the strength to stand.

When Mom pushed the door open, I was slumped against the toilet, gasping for breath.

She saw the rash covering me, and her first reaction wasn't worry. It was a frown.

"Your sister just cried for ages, saying she shouldn't have given you that shrimp, that it was all her fault you got sick. Are you satisfied now?"

I closed my eyes and couldn't get out a single word.

Mom looked down at me, her eyes full of displeasure.

"We're strict with you because you're our biological daughter."

"It's precisely because our blood runs in your veins that we want you to be good enough, worthy of this family."

"But Susan is different. She isn't ours by blood, and she already feels insecure enough. If we were harsh with her too, outsiders would only call us cruel, say we couldn't make room for one adopted daughter."

I suddenly wanted to laugh, but my throat was so swollen that even laughing was hard.

Mom thought I'd taken it to heart, and her tone finally softened a little.

"All right, stop throwing this tantrum."

"As long as you work hard next year, we'll make the exam a little easier and let you come home for a year. Isn't that enough?"

Next year.

Next year again.

All these years, they'd used those two words to fool me over and over.

But this time, I gave a slight shake of my head.

I lifted my eyes to her, my vision blurred from the fever.

"I'm not testing anymore."

"This family. I don't want it."

Mom's face turned completely cold.

"Is something wrong with you?"

"You're really going to make a scene over one lobster?"

My throat was so swollen it felt like something was clogging every breath.

But my silence seemed to enrage her, and her voice shot up all at once.

"Test or don't, I don't care!"

"If you're so unhappy with this family, then you can stay in that facility for the rest of your life!"

With that, she spun around and slammed the bathroom door so hard the whole room shook.

Shut in there, my vision went dark in waves, the itching burrowing almost into the cracks between my bones.

The medicine cabinet was right outside.

Back when I used to get allergic reactions, Mom found me such a nuisance that she once bought a box of medicine on a whim, then left it tossed in the living room drawer ever since.

I braced against the sink and waited a long while before I could barely push the door open, meaning to go find a pill to take.

But the moment I reached the doorway, I heard Mom's lowered voice.

"She's getting more and more out of line. She actually said she wants nothing to do with us from now on."

Dad was quiet for a moment, then said coldly.

"If she doesn't want to test, then she doesn't test. Saves us the trouble year after year."

Mom seemed to finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Honestly, this works out better."

"If she hadn't kept bullying Susan after she came back, scaring her by saying we were going to send her away, Susan never would have gotten depressed, and we never would have come up with this testing method in the first place."

My hand gripping the doorframe went rigid.

Dad let out a sigh: "When it comes down to it, she has no one to blame but her own foolishness."

Mom's voice carried a self-righteous edge.

"Using the tests to send her away is already the most dignified way to do this."

"She can't pass them herself. She doesn't meet our standards for a child we've raised, and no outsider can say a word about it."

"So now that she doesn't want to test anymore, we might as well just keep her in the facility. Once Susan gets into college and graduates, we'll find her a decent match and marry her off. By then, no matter how hard she tries to make us throw Susan out, we won't have anything to fear."

Dad let out a low grunt.

"If she really wants to blame someone, she can only blame herself for not being good enough."

In that instant, it felt like someone had carved open my chest, and I couldn't even make a sound to match the pain.

So the whole thing—the meritocracy, the family loyalty tests—was never about raising me.

It was only about getting rid of me in a way that looked respectable.

I was stolen when I was five.

The second year my parents couldn't find me, they used their grief as an excuse and adopted a new daughter.

If, when I was ten, the officer hadn't pulled me out of that cellar, I probably would have died in that pitch-black place long ago.

When I first came home, I was happy, too.

I thought I finally had a mom and dad, that I'd never be beaten again, never go hungry again,

that I'd never again have to live in terror of being crippled and dragged out to work like the other children.

But by the third year after I came back, they brought up their so-called merit training program.

At first, when I couldn't beat my adopted sister, I thought it was because I wasn't trying hard enough.

I told myself that during those years trapped in the cellar, I'd missed too much, so of course I couldn't measure up to the sister they'd carefully groomed from childhood.

So I studied with everything I had, chased after her with everything I had, even when the punishments at the facility left me covered in bruises,

telling myself that if I just tried a little harder, next time I'd get to come home.

But now I finally understood.

It wasn't that I couldn't catch up.

It was that from the very beginning, they never wanted me back.

The pain in my chest was like being torn to pieces. I opened my mouth, but I couldn't even force out a single sob.

The light in front of me slowly dimmed.

I finally couldn't hold on, and slid down along the door frame to the floor.

I don't know how long I was out before a basin of cold water was dumped over my head.

The biting cold shocked my eyes open, and I choked into violent coughing.

Mom stood in front of me, the empty basin still in her hand, her face full of displeasure.

"Are you done with the act?"

"You planning to sleep in the bathroom all night so Susan and I feel guilty, is that it?"

I was soaked through, so cold my teeth were chattering.

She only frowned as she looked me over.

"See? You're fine now, aren't you?"

"Quit pretending and get yourself cleaned up. We're leaving. Today is Susan's birthday, and if you dare play half-dead to cause trouble again, your dad and I will send you right back."

I braced myself against the sink and slowly stood, looking at myself in the mirror.

The cold water had brought the swelling on my face down a little,

but my lips were still bruised blue, and the skin under my eyes had an unnatural gray pallor.

No matter how you looked at it, I didn't seem fine.

But Mom acted as if she saw none of it.

I lowered my head and fished out of my pocket the old phone Aunt Delia had secretly slipped me.

I opened Aunt Delia's profile and sent her a single message.

【Aunt Delia, I can't stay here anymore. Please, come take me away today.】

The moment the message went out, Dad's impatient nagging came from beyond the door.

"What's taking so long? Susan's waiting to celebrate her birthday at the amusement park."

Mom's voice went cold as well: "Don't think faking sick will get you out of it. It's your sister's birthday. Don't ruin the mood."

I pushed the door open and stepped out. The second I reached the entryway, I saw Julian Harding from next door coming in with a gift box in his hands.