Before she could finish, I slapped her hard across the face. She fell to the floor, a tooth flying out.
Now, she truly couldn’t smile anymore.
Claudia lifted her hand to defend Phoebe, but I pushed her down onto the sofa. “It’s just a hairpin. What’s wrong with your sister wearing it? It was meant for me anyway. What’s mine is also Phoebe’s!”
She completely lost her usual composure, shouting at me in anger.
I took the silk cloth the manager handed me and gently wiped the hairpin. “Is your name engraved on it? Yet you still claim it’s yours. How self-centered.”
Claudia stared at me, taken aback. “Didn’t he say it was custom-made for your mother? If not me, then who else could your mother be?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I picked up a call. “Hello, Mom, I’m heading home now. You don’t need to come pick me up.”
After signing the receipt, I gathered my things and turned to leave.
“Freya!”
Claudia grabbed my hand tightly, refusing to let go.
“You actually called someone else Mom? Did you really find new parents? The dean never mentioned that! Judging by your clothes, they must not be rich, probably just workers earning four or five thousand a month, barely getting by?”
She gritted her teeth, her eyes full of resentment toward me.
“Cut ties with those ridiculous people right now! It’s shameful. Counting the ones in the mountains, you’ve already had three sets of parents. What decent girl has three sets of parents?”
“If you don’t handle this properly, don’t blame me for stepping in to fix it.”
Claudia’s face turned cold as she threatened me.
“Oh, I’m so scared,” I said with a hint of mockery. “Why don’t you come home with me and say that to their faces?”
Her cheeks flushed with anger. “Did you already transfer your household registration?”
Back when they left me at the orphanage, they had put my registration there so Phoebe wouldn’t grow suspicious.
“It was a legal adoption. Of course, my registration was transferred.”
Only then did Claudia finally believe that I had truly been adopted.
“You’re unfilial!”
“Your biological parents are still alive, and yet you let someone else adopt you? We only asked you to wait eight years. Why couldn’t you wait?”
Claudia never once thought she was at fault. She simply poured out her anger, unaware of the strange look on the manager’s face beside her. She pulled out her phone and made a call.