A Millionaire Daddy? She Refused

Chapter 6: The brilliant game designer and her foster father 6

"001, why does the novel never mention that Fiona’s condition is already this serious?” Valeria asked.

001 did not reply immediately as it usually did. After a few seconds passed, it finally answered,

“Ms. Meredith, it is possible that Roger provided inaccurate information.”

Valeria let out a soft laugh at its naivety and said,

“Fiona is a patient at the Hawthorne family’s hospital. It wouldn’t be strange for him to accidentally learn a few secrets. Besides, if what he said is true, then this story finally starts to make sense logically.”

001 clearly did not understand Valeria’s words and asked,

“What kind of logic?”

Valeria did not answer. Seeing that the car had already stopped in front of a beautiful white villa, she said to 001 instead,

“We’re here. Let’s go meet my genius little sister.”

Ralph Harold’s residence was a two-story villa with a spacious garden, located in a prime area in the heart of the city. Valeria stepped onto the elegant marble-paved path and walked inside. As she neared the entrance, she noticed that a window on the second floor was open, revealing a slender, beautiful figure gazing out at the world beyond.

Following the memories of the original owner of this body, Valeria raised her hand and waved at Fiona.

Sitting upstairs, Fiona had already noticed her sister returning home from school. Seeing Valeria smiling brightly, no less radiant than the midday sun, and waving enthusiastically, she smiled back and waved in response.

She watched Valeria’s agile movements, her steady footsteps, watched the healthy blush spreading across her sister’s cheeks under the sunlight. An unspoken bitterness and envy rose in her heart. They were twin sisters, so why was God so unfair? One of them possessed a strong, healthy body, while the other was nothing more than a broken shell, like a withered leaf clinging to a dying branch.

Valeria entered the house and immediately ran upstairs to look for her sister.

Contrary to the novel’s description - in which the elder sister, infatuated with Ralph, grew jealous of her younger sibling - Valeria, having inherited the original owner’s memories, knew very clearly how she truly felt about Fiona.

Fiona was the only family she had left in this world, and she carried deep affection for her.

She believed that even though they had been separated since childhood, they shared the same blood, a bond closer than any other relationship in the world. When she learned that her sister’s illness had worsened and that Fiona could no longer attend school with her, Valeria was so distressed that she barely slept for an entire week.

So after absorbing the memories of the body’s original owner, Valeria completely rejected the so-called plot that 001 had transmitted to her at the beginning.

“Are you feeling better today? Have you been taking your medicine on time?” Valeria asked gently, imitating the caring manner of the body’s former owner.

Fiona replied somewhat stiffly,

“I’m the same as always. What’s the point of taking medicine? It doesn’t make things any better.”

As her thoughts drifted back to her frail, ailing body, a deeper shade of melancholy crept into her eyes.

Although Valeria and Fiona were twin sisters, they did not look particularly alike. Both had brown hair and amber eyes, yet Valeria’s beauty was vivid and striking, like a velvet rose in full bloom, while Fiona’s was fresh and delicate, reminiscent of a daffodil in the early morning light.

Hearing her sister say that, Valeria continued to play the role of a gentle, attentive older sister.

“That won’t do. You have to take your medicine exactly as the doctor prescribed if you want to get better sooner.”

Fiona did not want to pursue the topic any further. Talking about it only made her feel even more inferior to her sister, if nothing else, she lacked something Valeria possessed so effortlessly: a healthy body.

To be honest, she did not like Valeria at all. She did not want the attention Ralph gave her to be shared with anyone else. But it was Ralph who had brought Valeria home, so she could not openly show her dislike. She wanted to be a gentle, obedient girl in his eyes.

She deliberately changed the subject.

“Have you finished the book I gave you last time? If there’s anything you don’t understand, you can ask me. I’ll teach you.”

Only when the conversation touched on her area of expertise did Fiona regain a sense of superiority over Valeria.

Valeria rummaged through the memories and then exclaimed in surprise to her AI assistant,

“001, look what I’ve discovered! Valeria is a genius too, no less talented than Fiona.”

According to the original memories, Valeria had known nothing at all about programming languages. But because it was something her younger sister loved, she had wanted to learn a little about it. Just last week, Valeria had borrowed a Python programming book from Fiona. Within a few days, she had finished reading it. Not only that, she had thoroughly understood the concepts in the book and even developed a strong interest in this fascinating subject.

Valeria had gone a step further, using the knowledge she learned from the book to design a simple game. Of course, it existed only as rough lines of code scribbled on paper. She did not yet have a computer, nor the means to actually put it into practice.

“Seven days. From knowing nothing about programming languages to grasping the basics, and even designing a simple game. Do you really think someone like that would steal another person’s work and claim it as her own?” she asked 001.

“Ms. Meredith, I don’t know. That’s how it was written in the original novel,” 001 replied.

Valeria imagined that if 001 were a cartoon character, its head would be surrounded by countless floating question marks right about now.

A sudden, rather malicious thought crossed Valeria’s mind. She wanted to provoke her younger sister a little, to see whether Fiona was truly as innocent and kind as the novel claimed.

“I’ve already finished the book,” she said lightly. “The content was very simple. I understood everything, there’s no need for you to explain it to me.”

Fiona let out a cold laugh. She had never once heard anyone describe programming languages as simple—especially not when the speaker was an outsider who had never touched the field before. In her mind, she was already certain that her sister was bluffing.

She raised an eyebrow, her eyes filled with undisguised disdain and mockery, and said,

“Then let me ask the questions, and you answer them. Let’s see whether you really understand.”

“Sure,” Valeria replied calmly. “Go ahead. As long as it’s content from the book, I understand all of it.”

Not to mention that the original owner of this body was a genius in her own right, even Valeria herself possessed an exceptionally high IQ. In the real world, aside from being an ordinary female student on the surface, she had another identity known to no one: NullCipher, the top hacker in the United States, if not the entire world. She was fluent in countless programming languages; even the most formidable firewalls on the planet were riddled with vulnerabilities in her eyes.

Clearly, she had never needed family. With her abilities alone, she could have lived a dazzling life. Yet because of her obsession with maternal affection, she had chosen to break her own wings, turning herself into someone pitiable and even ridiculous in the eyes of others.

Moreover, the world she came from was nearly fifty years more technologically advanced than this one. So to her, a so-called programming language like Python was about as difficult as breakfast.