After Abandoning the Real Daughter, Elite Parents Regretted Madly

After I confirmed I was the Delgados' true heiress, I reached out to them myself to reconnect.

But not long after I sent the message, I came across a post asking for advice.

The daughter we deliberately dumped at the orphanage wants to come back and be recognized, but we don't want her. What do we do?

One commenter asked out of curiosity: Why would you abandon your own biological daughter?

The poster poured out their grievances: Our family is well known in Ashford, an elite household. But when she was born her IQ test came back at only 38!

The child we adopted afterward is brilliant, IQ of 110. Only the strong deserve to be part of our family!

Some people mocked them, and some said they understood.

But the poster only liked one reply.

That's easy. She's not smart to begin with, so all you have to do is keep singling her out, keep isolating her, wear down her enthusiasm little by little. Give her the worst, most out-of-the-way room, for instance. She'll leave on her own, and you can even be rid of her for good!

This is a psychological technique for mental control, PUA for short.

Every day, tens of thousands of people are driven to death by exactly this.

And as it happened, my personal phone and my work inbox got messages from the Delgados at the very same time.

On my personal phone, the tone was cold: Your coming back has thrown the household into too much disorder. We need time to arrange things. Come back in two weeks.

In my work inbox, warm as could be: We've heard you've been named a judge at yet another international competition. Our family, the Delgados, would like to hire you at an annual salary of one million as private tutor to our son and daughter.

And I replied to both with the same word: sure.

......

It was true that the message the Delgados sent to my personal number lined up perfectly with the post.

But finding my family had been my one fixation for as long as I could remember.

I couldn't judge the Delgados off a single post that named no names, without any proof at all.

The poster had already taken the commenter's advice and set up an environment to isolate their biological daughter half a month in advance.

And I could use the tutor role to see exactly what the Delgados planned to do during those two weeks they were making me wait.

The work phone chimed on and on. The Delgados sent more than ten messages in a row.

It's truly an honor for us that you agreed!

Do you have any food you avoid? We'll instruct the kitchen to keep it in mind!

But after I sent my reply on my personal phone, the Delgados went silent.

Not one word of guidance for me, their own daughter.

Not the slightest concern for whether their coldness might cut me.

I lowered my eyes, put both phones back in my bag, and went home to pack the teaching tools I'd need.

The next day, I arrived at the Delgados' door right on time and rang the bell.

The housekeeper must have been briefed by her employers. She took my bag with great enthusiasm, beaming.

"You must be Teacher James! Please, come in! The master and madam have even prepared a welcome ceremony for you!"

The housekeeper led me into the living room.

Barret Delgado, my father.

Penelope Pruitt, my mother.

The two of them clapped, faces bright with smiles, and at once someone raised a banner.

It read: A warm welcome to Teacher James at the Delgado home!

There were flowers, there were gifts. The scale of it was startling.

Because the competition was a month away, and their offer had specifically required me to live in.

Barret led me up to the second floor and pointed to the first room, bright and full of light. "This one is set aside just for you, Teacher James!"

Everything inside was fully stocked, the furniture carefully chosen.

A noise from the far end of the hallway caught my attention.

I turned my head and saw a number of workers carrying things in and out of the room at the very end.

What they carried out was dusty clutter. What they carried in was broken-down furniture.

A rusted iron bed, four feet wide. A table with one leg snapped off.

Noticing my gaze, Penelope explained with a smile.

"That's the storage room. Someone's only just going to be living there."

I took a step back and glanced toward it.

Cramped and shut in, no window at all, mold in the corner. It clearly hadn't been cleaned in a very long time.

I thought of that line in the post, give her the farthest, worst room, so she can't find any sense of belonging in the house.

I drew in a deep breath and asked, feigning curiosity.

"May I be so bold as to ask who this room is meant for?"

Barret sighed. "She'll be arriving while you're still here anyway, Teacher, so we won't keep it from you!"

"The person who's going to live in that room is the biological daughter we abandoned!"

At the mention of this daughter, the two of them, so excited a moment ago, immediately frowned, their eyes full of disgust.

"She was diagnosed as mentally deficient the moment she was born. She's nothing but a stain and a disgrace on this family!"

"We assumed someone with an IQ like hers had died in the orphanage long ago. We never imagined she'd be traced down. Our family really has no need for an idiot daughter like that!"

Everything lined up.

My eyes were painfully dry, and it took a long time before I found my voice again.

"What if she isn't mentally deficient? What if the test was just a misjudgment?"

Penelope answered without a shred of hesitation.

"Teacher James, what we did was a professional test. There's no such possibility."

After I set my things down in silence, Penelope, trying to smooth over the awkwardness of having just badmouthed her own daughter in front of me, changed the subject stiffly.

"I hear you came out of an orphanage yourself, Teacher James, and still achieved all this from a place like that. Truly impressive! Which orphanage was it, if I may ask?"

Something tightened in my chest. I spoke slowly. "The one on the west side."

At that, she immediately bowed her head, sinking into thought, and murmured to herself, "The west side?"

My heart was pounding.

Had Penelope finally rememberedthat this was the place they'd left me?

But when I met her eyes, they were only blank. "I had no idea there was even an orphanage out in a backwater like that!"

Then Barret gave a little laugh, his words full of praise for me.

"If we'd known, we could have adopted Teacher James ourselves, couldn't we?"

"I honestly can't imagine what kind of parents would abandon a child as brilliant as you!"

The words rang hollow and mocking in my ears.

So abandoning me hadn't left the faintest ripple in their lives.

They simply didn't care.

The housekeeper's voice from downstairs broke my silence.

"Sir, madam, Teacher James! The young miss and young master are back! Dinner can be served!"

I followed them downstairs.

And saw my two students.

Felicia Delgado, the daughter they'd adopted, wore a suit worth over a hundred thousand, the Delgado family heirloom hanging at her throat.

Roland Delgado had a diamond-studded watch on his wrist worth hundreds of thousands, crocodile-leather shoes on his feet.

Both of them looked at me with a trace of contempt.

Felicia clicked her tongue. "Mom, Dad, don't let yourselves get scammed. This Teacher James looks the same age as me! And you're paying her a million-a-year salary?"

Seeing my expression stay flat, not a word out of me, I rose as if to leave the Delgado house.

Barret coughed hastily and spoke with a sharp edge.

"Felicia! Apologize to Teacher James!"

"Teacher James is the last protge of the research titan Winston James! She skipped grades and finished college at fifteen! And she was the only judge from our country at an international competition!"

Penelope looked at me with envy too.

"I hear Teacher James is about to be published in the most prestigious research journal, and she's searching for her own parents to appear alongside her. I really do envy that!"

At that, Felicia apologized to me sincerely enough on the surface, but the jealousy in her eyes only deepened.

I nodded blandly and looked at Barret and Penelope. "There's no need to envy it."

They took it as praise for how impressive Felicia and Barret were and waved it off at once. "How could the two of them compare to you? You really are the finest child we've ever met!"

But inside I finished the rest of the sentence with a cold smile.

The moment you decided to isolate me, to drive me to my death, you pushed that chance out the door with your own hands.

That's how elite families are. Always picking the best of the best.

Lily the housekeeper, quick to read the room, played up to her employers. "If you ask me, madam and sir could simply take Teacher James as a goddaughter! I think she even looks a bit like the two of you!"

The moment the words left her mouth, Barret and Penelope both turned to look at me.

Their pupils widened, as if they'd caught a glimpse of the blood tie between us.

But before long, they curved their mouths into self-mocking smiles.

"If only we could have had a daughter like this. What a shame. Our own flesh-and-blood daughter is a useless thing who can't even take care of herself! She'd have been better off dying in that orphanage!"

I drew a deep breath and let go, completely, of the last thread of hope I'd held for them.

"I don't make a habit of adopting my clients as godparents either."

Seeing me steal her parents' attention, Felicia hurried over and grabbed my arm. "Since we're on the subject of Mom and Dad's real daughter, let me tell Teacher James something funny!"

"That idiot came trotting home to claim her family, but Mom and Dad don't want her at all! So we've all agreed to stand united and teach her a good lesson about not barging into other people's families!"

"I ordered a whole batch of nonvenomous snakes, rats, and insects online, and I had cameras installed in her room. When the time comes, we'll play her terrified, pathetic reactions on a loop in the living room!"

"She grew up in an orphanage, after all, and she's got no brains, so she's bound to be a spineless little coward. If she faints from fright, well, that's her own ignorance for not recognizing those harmless little things!"

Felicia served it up as a joke meant to please me, the corners of her mouth lifting with malice.

And I finally couldn't hold back.

"It isn't funny. She's the real daughter of this family, not an outsider."

Felicia froze.

Pampered all these years, she wasn't used to anyone speaking to her like that.

So she shoved me, impatient. "Teacher James, I thought you were a smart woman. I thought you understood that being the best matters above everything, and the family's interests come first!"

Then she turned to Barret, frowning, playing for sympathy.

"Dad! I told you this Teacher James isn't one of us at all. She's got a poor person's mindset through and through. How could she possibly teach me and my brother properly?"

Roland gave a cold snort too. "I really didn't expect Teacher James to stick up for a brain-dead idiot!"

Barret rose and slapped Felicia across the face.

"Apologize! One more word against Teacher James and I cut off your allowance!"

Felicia stared at him, disbelieving, unable to make sense of it.

The reason was exactly what she'd said. Interests came first.

The Delgados hadn't chosen me as their tutor only because I was the final protge of a research titan. It was because I was the technology consultant at the top international firm they were desperate to partner with.

Barret pressed Felicia's and Roland's heads down into a bow toward me. "My daughter just speaks too bluntly!"

"But she's not wrong either. Not everyone can rise up out of an orphanage the way you did, Teacher James."

They had no idea how much I'd suffered, abandoned in that orphanage.

Never enough to eat, never warm enough, shut out and beaten and cursed at because I loved to study.

Collecting bottles to buy practice workbooks, drilling problems all night with my hands and feet cracked from the cold, and still the only thing in my head was: "If I just study hard enough, I'll find my family again!"

I gave a stiff nod and sat back down in my seat.

Once I was back in my room, the first thing I did was tell my mentor. "I don't want my birth parents getting published in the international journal anymore!"

He replied at once. "People like that don't deserve to be your parents. I'll handle the interview side. And I'll tell Hendrix Technologies to screen their partners far more carefully!"

With his word on it, I was certain the Delgados would get the email killing their project before long.

So over the next few days, I taught Felicia and Roland their competition problems while I watched them build the room meant to break me.

Every piece of furniture in it was battered and half-broken, creaking the moment you touched it.

The wardrobe was stocked with cockroaches and mice, and open the nightstand and a snake would shoot out.

They'd even brought in a painter to cover the ceiling with red and black handprints that only showed once the lights went off.

You'd only have to open your eyes in that bed to see them.

Felicia directed it all, clutching her stomach with laughter. "She's so stupid, when she faints from fright she won't even realize we did it on purpose!"

Barret and Penelope didn't stop her. If anything, they indulged Felicia in tormenting their own flesh and blood.

When the afternoon lesson ended, I looked down from upstairs and saw Penelope and the others receiving guests.

I caught the faint sound of the word marriage.

Felicia appeared behind me, stretching lazily, the corner of her mouth curling into a sneer. "Teacher, that young Mr. Abbott downstairs, his grandfather had a stroke last year. He wants a girl over twenty to marry."

"And look at that, the little fool walked right into the trap and sent herself back to us!"

I couldn't believe these were things any parents would do to their own daughter.

"What if she refuses? This would ruin a girl's entire life!"

Roland couldn't have cared less about handing his own sister over as a bargaining chip.

"So what? A moron like her creating any value for this family is already a gift!"

"When she comes home she'll be begging us to care about her. We string her along a little, and to win us over she'll definitely agree to marry the old man!"

He and Felicia traded a look, and something gleeful flickered in both their eyes.

"And we've got a surprise ready for her at the recognition banquet in three days! I really can't wait to see the ugly way she cries that day!"

I didn't argue with them anymore.

Because I was looking forward to it too.

Looking forward to the day of the recognition banquet, to the look on Barret's and Penelope's faces when they realized the daughter they'd longed to claim and the worthless girl in their fantasies were one and the same.

For three days the Delgados threw themselves into preparing the family recognition banquet.

Not that they cared much about it.

Felicia had simply come up with more ways to make sure my very first day in that house would drown me in humiliation.

I only did my job as her teacher, telling her to keep her mind on the competition problems.

She rolled her eyes, bored, and ground her foot down onto my white shoe.

"Don't think a little kindness from Mom and Dad means you get to lecture me!"

"Someday this whole family will belong to me and Roland. You're nothing but some teacher who came out of an orphanage!"

She turned away with a sneer and went back to directing Roland's pack of hangers-on.

"Move the champagne tower to the left of the door! Roland, when the time comes you make her walk in through that one!"

"Kevin Lambert, tomorrow you stick your foot out and trip her! The gown I ordered for her is nice and long, she'll fall right into the champagne tower for sure!"

"Eustace Simmons, you like photography, don't you? Make sure you get plenty of shots of that idiot tomorrow!"

The lot of them kept rehearsing it, breaking into laughter every so often.

Barret and Penelope saw all this and only cautioned her, "Felicia, tomorrow you play the gracious one, don't do anything with your own hands!"

"Dirtying your hands and your reputation over someone like that isn't worth it."

They waved a hand and told the housekeeper, "Go message what's-her-name, tell her to be here on time the day after tomorrow!"

Their tone was light and careless, like they were dealing with garbage nobody wanted.

Then Barret turned around and pressed the gilt-edged invitation into my hands, his face all pleading. "Teacher James, if the titan Winston James would honor us at the recognition banquet, that would be wonderful."

"I hear his most treasured student is you, and that he's been recommending you to take over at all sorts of company labs..."

I took the invitation and cut him off coolly. "My mentor will come. And he'll bring those friends of his along."

Barret couldn't hide his excitement, thanking me again and again.

Because today he'd already gotten the rejection email, and now he was just waiting to curry favor with my mentor.

I looked away and let the mockery curl at the corner of my mouth, where he couldn't see it.

Thank me for what? They were coming to stand behind me.

I knew exactly what Barret and the rest were planning.

Put on a carefully staged recognition banquet so everyone would think they weren't heartless people.

Then work in a scene to humiliate me, to prove I was slow-witted, unfit to be a daughter.

So that even when they cast me off and married me to that old man, it would all seem perfectly understandable.

It would keep them from losing face in high society while shoving me down into the dirt for everyone to spit on. What a clever little scheme.

Back in my room, when I opened my personal phone, the housekeeper had sent not only the time and place of the recognition banquet but also where to pick up the gown.

I went and collected it, long and sheer, so that one splash of wine would leave me without a scrap of privacy.

Felicia. Truly vicious.

I folded the gown away into my bag and went back to the Delgado house.

Penelope was instructing the servants, "The only young lady in this house is and always will be Felicia. Tomorrow when that so-called real heiress shows up, you treat her like she's not even there, don't pay her any attention!"

"And don't let her out of the bedroom. Just throw something together for her meals."

She glanced up, saw me, and explained on reflex, "I only worry she'll get jealous that Felicia and Roland have you as their private tutor, and start making a scene about wanting lessons too, and cause you trouble!"

I gave a small smile and didn't respond to her explanation, only said, "Mrs. Delgado, I'll see you tomorrow."

The next day, everyone in the Delgado family was dressed to impress.

Not only had the society crowd come, my mentor had brought every heavyweight from the academic world along with him.

The moment Barret spotted my mentor he was like a cat that had seen a fish, forever trying to crowd up against him.

My mentor wore a faint, unreadable smile. "Let's talk after the recognition banquet."

Everyone was waiting for this real heiress who had come knocking on her own.

"I hear she's not very bright, nowhere close to Felicia."

"Bad at her studies, timid on top of it, a complete stain on the Delgado name!"

Roland's friends stood at their assigned spots, itching to begin.

But ten o'clock came and still no one pushed open the door and walked in.

Penelope's displeasure showed on her face, and she lowered her voice. "No manners at all, just as I thought. Actually daring to be late!"

She picked up her phone and dialed.

The ringtone went trilling out across the banquet hall.

The moment I drew my personal phone from my bag, the look on Roland and Penelope's faces was like they'd eaten dirt.

"That's impossible!"