I couldn’t speak until I was eight years old.

Everyone in the Sterling family called me dumb. Even my mother would secretly wipe away tears, convinced she had given birth to an autistic daughter. Whenever my father looked at me, his eyes were filled with nothing but disappointment. However, for the sake of the family’s reputation, he could never bring himself to send me away to a special education school.

Then came the day someone from a prominent hedge fund company arrived to acquire our family company, Sterling Group. He was so arrogant that he chewed out everyone in the boardroom until all of them hung their heads low. The room full of corporate executives fell silent, too terrified to speak.

Meanwhile, I stood there in the corner, listening to the whole thing until I felt sleepy and fed up. Taking a step forward, I spoke the very first words of my life.

My name is Savannah Sterling, and I am the sole successor to the Sterling Group. This was supposed to be a life born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Yet, here I was at eight years old, and I still hadn’t spoken a single word. Everyone in the Sterling household knew that their young lady was dumb.

My mother came from a highly respected, old-money family in South River City. She was gentle and well-mannered, and she poured every ounce of her love into me.

She would hold me close, repeating words over and over, trying to teach me. “Savannah, say Mommy. Say… Mom-my…”

I would just stare at her, completely silent.

Slowly, the light in her eyes dimmed. She would turn around, subtly wiping the corners of her eyes with a tissue, thinking I didn’t notice. However, I saw everything. I knew exactly what was happening. It wasn’t that I couldn’t speak; I just didn’t want to.

I was born with the memories of my past life. In that life, I was a chatty financial analyst who spoke nonstop for thirty years, but I was utterly exhausted. So, in this life, I just wanted to be a useless couch potato and enjoy the ride.

Unfortunately, I severely underestimated the crushing weight of being the successor to Sterling Group. It wasn’t a ticket to absolute freedom, but a gilded cage.

My father, the chairman of Sterling Group, was a ruthless businessman. Every time he looked at me, there was always hope in his eyes.

“Savannah, do you know what this is?”

He would point to the rows of numbers on the financial statements, and I would nod.

“Can you tell Daddy what the net profit for this quarter is?”

I would reach my small hand out and point precisely to the correct figure. The anticipation in his eyes would intensify. Then, he would finally ask the one question he wanted answered more than anything else.

“Savannah, can you say ’Daddy’ for me?”

I would look at him, maintaining my absolute silence. With that, the light in his eyes would vanish, and all that remained was disappointment. He would sit in silence for a long time before standing up and storming out of the room.

“Sigh.”

That heavy sigh felt weighty enough to shatter the glass walls of the entire skyscraper.

I knew very well that if I weren’t the only daughter, and if my mother’s family weren’t so prominent, my position as the successor would’ve been stripped away a long time ago. Even my cousins’ attitudes toward me had shifted over time. Their initial fear had completely transformed into blatant mockery.

“Hey, Sav, did you actually understand a single thing the tutor taught in English class today?”

The speaker was Jane Sterling, the daughter of my uncle, Ross Sterling. She was only a year younger than me, but she was sharp-tongued, articulate, and deeply favored by my father.

I spared her a glance, unbothered to give her a reaction.

Seeing my silence, she laughed even harder. “Oh, I forgot! Sav is a natural-born prodigy. She knew everything the moment she was born, unlike us average kids who actually have to hit the books.”

“Jane, don’t talk like that,” Harper Sterling, the daughter of my other uncle, Graham Sterling, chimed in with a fake, hypocritical tone. “Sav just hates talking to us. Great minds are late bloomers, don’t you know?”

They played off one another perfectly. Around us, the maids kept their heads down, but their shoulders were trembling. They were laughing and mocking me, the dumb fool who couldn’t speak.

I walked right past them with a blank expression. To me, they were just two annoying grasshoppers jumping around in front of my face. They were boring and childish.

My mother watched all of this unfold, her heart breaking for me.

Late that night, she held me tightly in her arms once again, her tears soaking through the fabric on my shoulder.

“My Savannah, why won’t you speak? Even if it is just a word, just one word, I could die happy.”

I could feel her body trembling. It was the pure, unadulterated despair of a mother.

My heart, after all, was not made of stone. At that exact moment, my resolve began to waver, and I thought perhaps it really was time for me to speak. However, just as I opened my mouth, attempting to force out a long-forgotten syllable, hurried footsteps echoed outside the study.

Arthur, our butler, scrambled into the room.

“Ma’am, something terrible has happened! The people from Atlantica have arrived! That Wall Street venture capitalist, Charles King, is already at the corporate headquarters!”

My mother’s face instantly turned pale.

Charles King. That name was a dark cloud that had been looming over the Sterling Group for a long time. He was the most ruthless vulture in the financial world, a man who specialized in shorting and destroying family-owned conglomerates. In recent years alone, he had aggressively swallowed up three companies of similar scale to the Sterling Group.

“What is he doing here?” my mother demanded.

Arthur’s voice was shaking. “He… He is here to negotiate an acquisition. His language was incredibly disrespectful. He said he’s here to ensure that Sterling Group exits the world market with grace!”

My mother staggered back a step, gripping the edge of the desk for support.

A so-called “negotiated acquisition” was nothing more than a polite euphemism for a forced hostile takeover. A massive storm was about to hit us.

I looked up, staring out the window at the bleak, gray sky. It seemed like my days of peacefully playing the useless daughter were officially coming to an end.

Oh well. There would always be some inconsiderate flies who would insist on rousing a sleeping lion.

…

Up in the boardroom of the corporate headquarters, my father urgently called a meeting with every family member and core executive. I was also dragged along and left to stand in the corner. This was a family tradition, and as the eldest granddaughter, I was required to attend and observe major family matters.

In the past, I would always find a secluded corner to stand in all morning, letting my mind wander. Today, however, the atmosphere was different. The boardroom was pin-drop silent, and every person’s face was twisted into a grim, humiliated shade of pale. My father sat at the head of the table, his expression grim.

Standing right in front of him was a tall, middle-aged man dressed in a bespoke suit. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses lay a pair of eyes as sharp as a hawk’s. This was Charles King.

“Mr. Sterling, is this how the Sterling family treats its guests?” Charles spoke up, his tone sarcastic. “I flew all the way from New Atlantica, and this is what you show me?”

He extended a slender finger, pointing dismissively at the trembling executives seated around the room.

“You’re all a bunch of bookworms who only know how to read financial reports! I talk to you about capital, and you talk to me about feelings. I talk to you about market trends, and you talk to me about a century of family heritage. How ridiculous!”

He laughed out loud, a sharp, arrogant sound that echoed jarringly through the solemn, dignified boardroom.

“Mr. King!” The chief financial officer stood up, his entire body shaking with rage. “This is the board of directors of Sterling Group! We will not tolerate your insolence here!”

Charles glanced at him sideways, his face filled with utter disdain.

“Old man, I know who you are. You were the one preaching to me yesterday about how family businesses have a human touch. Let me tell you something: our rule in the financial world is that if there’s no profit, then into the grave you go! Only the weak rely on emotions to mask their own incompetence!”

The chief financial officer’s weathered face flushed red as he pointed at Charles. He stammered for a long moment before gasping for air and collapsing straight backward.

“Mr. Woods!”

The people nearby scrambled in a panic to catch him, and a chaotic commotion rippled through the boardroom.

My father slammed his hand onto the table, roaring, “Enough!”

Only then did Charles rein it in slightly, though the sheer contempt on his face didn’t fade. He gave my father a dismissive, half-hearted nod.

“Mr. Sterling, I won’t waste any more breath on you. Our investment committee has made its decision. Sterling Group’s stock price won’t survive past next year. If you sell now, you can walk away with three billion dollars. But once we start shorting your stock, I’m afraid you won’t even have ten million left.

“Furthermore, we’ve taken a liking to Sterling Group’s plot of land on the south side of the city. It’s perfect for developing high-end luxury estates. Oh, and I heard your company’s tech team is quite capable. We plan to poach the entire department–”

Before he could even finish his sentence, the entire boardroom erupted into chaos.

Driving down the acquisition price, seizing their land, and poaching their core team? Was this supposed to be an acquisition negotiation? This was a blatant attempt to butcher and dismantle the Sterling Group!

“This is absolute extortion!”

“Get out of here, vulture!”

“We’ll fight them to the bitter end!”

Over by my Uncle Ross’s side of the table, several hot-tempered shareholders could no longer contain their rage.

Charles merely sneered. “Fight? Sure.”

He looked toward Uncle Ross at the head of the group and said, “I recognize you. You’re the second Sterling brother, Ross Sterling, aren’t you? Three years ago, that real estate project you spearheaded—how much did it lose? Two hundred million? Or was it three hundred million?”

Uncle Ross’s features turned bright red, as though he had been slapped across the face. The veins on his clenched fists bulged, yet he couldn’t utter a single word.

Charles then turned to look at another executive.

“And you, the marketing director? How much did you blow on marketing during Black Friday last year? What was your actual conversion rate? Was that pathetic spike in sales even enough to cover your advertising costs?”

The marketing director lowered his head as well, his face burning with shame.

As Charles’s gaze swept across the room, every person who had just been shouting fell silent. The boardroom plunged right back into a deathly, suffocating hush. It was a humiliating, powerless kind of silence.

Standing in the corner, I watched the whole spectacle unfold. These were supposed to be the elite minds of Sterling Group. Yet, the finance team was completely outtalked, and the marketing team had its deepest vulnerabilities exposed. A room full of grown professionals was being thoroughly humiliated by a corporate vulture from the financial world, their heads hanging low.

I, on the other hand, was actually feeling a little sleepy. I wasn’t joking. This scene was turning out to be far uglier than I had anticipated. It was just like a group of adults trapped in an alley by a street thug, getting slapped one by one without anyone daring to make a sound.

My father’s chest heaved. I knew he was on the verge of snapping, but he couldn’t because everything Charles was saying happened to be the absolute truth. Sterling Group’s performance was indeed tanking. This was the harsh reality of being the weaker party.

Charles looked satisfied with the impact he had made. He cleared his throat, gearing up to demand even more outrageous concessions.

“Since everyone has gone quiet, I take it we are all in agreement? Our firm also requires that–”

His ceaseless, droning voice felt like a fly buzzing right in my ear.

Initially, I had only intended to be a quiet spectator. However, this particular fly was getting too loud and annoying. I was truly getting irritated.

In that silent boardroom, everyone kept their heads bowed, so nobody noticed me, tucked away in the corner, moving. I took a single step forward, walking right out of the shadows of the corner and stepping directly into the light.