This Time, I'll Be the Villain's Favorite Daughter novel Chapter 199

Chapter 199 Old Photo

After Edric brought Maya and Alfred back to a private compound, he had almost no time to spend with either of them in any meaningful way.

From morning to night, every day was the same relentless rhythm. Meetings, then visitors, then hours in front of the surveillance wall in the command room, then back to the office to sign off on documents.

Maya had never set foot in a place like this before.

Maps and files blanketed the desk, and an entire wall of monitors displayed every corner of the compound in sharp, shifting detail.

The office had two bedrooms attached to it, with just enough space for the three of them.

For the first three days, with no phone and nothing to do, Maya worked up the nerve to poke around and eventually dug up an old Rubik’s cube from somewhere.

She and Alfred claimed a corner, sat shoulder to shoulder, and spent entire afternoons hunched over it together, turning and turning without any particular urgency.

Edric came in occasionally, but only to retrieve a file or stand in front of the monitors for a minute before leaving again.

He had no interest in children whatsoever.

Maya had clocked that immediately.

He wasn’t the type to have any sentimental inclination toward raising a child at his

He’d brought her here and kept her close, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was looking for in her.

Maya had seen enough unusual people by now to form a baseline, and Edric registered as surprisingly tolerable by that measure.

On the surface, at least.

He never raised his voice, never lost his composure. His personality ran cool and even, his speech unhurried, his emotions steady as stone.

Edric was the most central figure in the entire Clark generation.

Philbert and Ned had been quietly desperate for someone capable, and the moment Edric was old enough, they’d practically thrown every branch of the family’s holdings at him. They were simultaneously grooming Toby at full speed, intent on having the two brothers share the weight.

It wasn’t until the fourth day that Maya had her first real conversation with Edric.

That afternoon, a delivery arrived for him.

It was packaged with meticulous care, wrapped in a brown kraft paper bag, reinforced inside with a hard cardboard layer, and at the very center of it all was a single old photograph.

10:28 am

Chapter 199 Old Photo

Edric stood at the edge of the desk and stared at it for a long, unmoving stretch of time.

Maya had been sitting with Alfred working on the Rubik’s cube, but Eric’s focus was so palpably intense that it was impossible to ignore.

She hesitated for a few seconds.

Then she set the cube down and walked over.

When Edric saw her coming, he lifted the photograph by its edge and gave it a small, gentle wave in front of her. “Do you recognize her?”

Maya didn’t follow at first.

Then she looked at the photograph.

The person in it was a girl, really more of a teenager. Around fourteen or fifteen, with a radiant smile, a carnival in the background, and a small boy clutched tight in her arms.

Maya leaned in to look more closely, and Edric turned the photograph face–down with a quiet, deliberate motion.

Maya stood still for a moment, her thoughts drifting. She hadn’t paid much attention to the boy. It was the girl that kept pulling her back.

She looked like who Maya would grow up to be.

She looked exactly like who Maya had been in her previous life.

Maya held onto her hesitation for a long beat, then met his eyes. “I think that might be me.”

Edric looked at her.

His expression held nothing in it, the same composed blankness as always, but Maya got the distinc impression he’d been waiting for exactly that answer.

“But not the me right now,” Maya added.

Her mind was already running hard, trying to work through what any of this could possibly mean.

She thought she finally understood why Edric’s attitude toward her had always carried that strange mixture of detachment and inexplicable curiosity.

It had started with this photograph.

But why? Why would there be someone in the world who looked exactly like her?

Had reality itself developed some kind of glitch?

“Maya.”

He noticed the furrow of concentration on her face. He leaned back slightly and said her name with quiet.

PP

Chapter 199 Old Photo

45. Pearls

unhurried gentleness, watching her with those calm, unreadable eyes. “I’m genuinely curious as to why you look exactly like this person.”

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