Chapter 481: I’ll Help You Think

“Not Summer Vance?” Aurora Donovan gasped, turning in surprise to look at the person in the room. Her first thought was that someone had gotten plastic surgery to look like Summer Vance, pulling a switcheroo right under their noses.

But that wasn’t what Arabella Donovan meant. The last time they met, she had seen at a glance that Summer Vance had two souls in one body.

Although she had two souls, both of them actually belonged to Summer Vance. They shared the same origin, so merging them was not only inevitable but also the most appropriate and harmless solution.

But this time, Arabella Donovan was surprised to discover something about Summer Vance that didn’t belong to her.

It felt somewhat like a wandering ghost trying to usurp a body, but not quite. It gave her an intense, unsettling feeling of fragmentation—a dissonance she couldn’t pinpoint—that put her on guard and made the hairs on her arms stand on end.

In the hospital room, Summer Vance—who had been diagnosed with a split personality after her capture—froze for a second. Then, she raised an eyebrow and said meaningfully, “If I’m not Summer Vance, then who is?”

The moment she spoke, the feeling of dissonance intensified. From Arabella Donovan’s perspective, she could hear Summer’s soul and her physical body simultaneously uttering the same words, but in different keys. This confirmed her suspicion that something was very wrong.

It was less like the soul possessions seen in cultivation dramas and more like a computer being formatted and rebooted by a single command, emerging completely different from before.

‘Why did it turn out like this? Could it be that my skills are subpar, that there was a problem with the Soul Nourishing Talisman I gave her? Did it fail to merge the two souls and instead create a new personality?’

Before Arabella Donovan could dwell on it, the person asked in a chilling tone, “So you’re the one who gave her that thing, trying to have her replace me?”

Arabella Donovan froze. Hearing that, she started to question her own judgment. ‘Could this actually be a part of Summer Vance that was hidden before?’

But in the brief moment Arabella Donovan was pondering this, the smiling figure suddenly curled her fingers into a claw and lunged at her before anyone else could react.

Aurora Donovan: “!!!”

The staff who had accompanied them: “!!!”

Aurora Donovan was the first to react, rushing forward to shield her sister. But Arabella just disdainfully grabbed her and tossed her into the arms of the nearby bodyguards.

Aurora Donovan: “…”

In that brief moment of distraction, Summer Vance’s hand was already before Arabella Donovan, about to close around her throat.

Arabella Donovan grabbed her wrist, twisted it back, and with a loud BANG, effortlessly slammed her onto the cabinet beside the hospital bed.

“You dare to attack me? It seems you really aren’t Summer Vance. Tell me, what wandering ghost are you? What is your purpose in Summer Vance’s body?”

“I am Summer Vance! I am! It’s all because of you! If it weren’t for you, I’d have been with Julian long ago! We had such a wonderful connection; we would have been the happiest, most blissful couple in the world. He would have given me everything I ever wanted. I can’t even imagine how happy, how overjoyed I would have been.”

“But you’ve ruined everything! You’re an anomaly! An anomaly! You’re a devil who destroys people’s happiness! Someone like you is going to hell, and you deserve to be there!”

The woman, pinned against the cabinet, shrieked with a voice full of resentment, sounding like a vengeful ghost claiming souls at midnight. It was enough to give anyone listening goosebumps.

Aurora Donovan’s expression darkened. Worried that her sister would be hurt by the woman’s words, she was about to retort when she saw Arabella raise her hand and slap the back of the other woman’s head.

“What’s so hard to imagine? I can imagine it just fine. You’d just be a deeply-in-love, all-over-each-other, clingy little couple, right? Here, let me paint the picture for you. Without me, you would have slowly drowned in Julian Spencer’s sweet nothings, believing he was the most upstanding, reliable, and responsible man in the world.”

“You’d do anything for him, even cross your own moral lines—murder, arson, stealing someone else’s research. You wouldn’t care if others were devastated or driven to despair, as long as you and your precious Julian were happy.”

Arabella Donovan’s voice was quiet, but her words were bone-chilling. Summer Vance had just called her a devil, but now Arabella’s own soft whispers sounded like a demonic chant, luring a soul step by step into the abyss.

“Gradually, you’d discover that helping Julian Spencer commit all sorts of evil, aiding a tyrant, would earn you more of his love. For that, your standards would sink lower and lower, until you became nothing but a parasitic vine, completely dependent on him for survival. And then you’d realize just how happy you are, how much he loves you, how much he pities you, and how he’d give you the world.”

Arabella Donovan paused, her tone shifting sharply. “But at that point, you’d also realize that while he loves you, he loves someone else, too. He can give you everything you want, and he can just as easily give another woman everything she wants. In fact, if you and that woman were placed on opposite ends of a scale and he was forced to choose, he might not pick you.”

At that, the woman pinned against the cabinet finally reacted, her entire body beginning to tremble violently.

A glint appeared in Arabella Donovan’s eyes as she pressed on. “But what could you do? Years of being his kept woman would have completely eroded your ability to survive on your own. No matter how heartbroken or resentful you felt, you’d have no choice but to submit to reality. You’d watch the love of your life flirt and build a life with another woman, while you, his supposed queen, were forced to live like a dirty little secret.”

“Enough! Enough! Stop talking! I said stop! Shut up! Shut up!”

Summer Vance’s screams were even more shrill and terrifying than before, causing the grown men in the room to turn pale, their expressions awkward.

The only one unaffected was Arabella Donovan. ‘She tells me to shut up, and I’m supposed to obey? Am I that kind of person?’

“You were right before. To you, I am an anomaly. But without me, this anomaly, you, Summer Vance, were fated to live your entire life as nothing more than Julian Spencer’s accessory. For the woman you used to be… is that the future you truly wanted?”

Her words hit their mark. The struggling beneath her hand instantly ceased.

Arabella Donovan frowned, sensing a shift. She released her grip, and Summer Vance turned to face her.

The face that had been twisted in agitation was now calm. It was still the same face, the same person, but the entire aura she projected had undergone an earth-shattering change.

Aurora Donovan and the others, who had been watching from the sidelines, couldn’t help but look astonished. ‘How can a person change so drastically from one moment to the next? Is she really… suffering from a split personality?’

Arabella Donovan studied the person before her for a long moment before asking tentatively, “You’re Summer Vance. The old Summer Vance. Or perhaps… the Summer Vance who was unexpectedly reborn.”