This Time, I'll Be the Villain's Favorite Daughter novel Chapter 200

Chapter 200 Forgotten Past

Was I really like that as a child?

He couldn’t remember.

Edric had never been particularly inclined to dig through his own past.

Maya sat with his question for two seconds, then shook her head. “The girt looks like me, yeah, but I don’t recognize the boy. Maybe the photo’s fake?”

Edric leaned back in his chair, fingertips resting lightly against each other. “Is that so?

“You’re not even a little curious? You two look identical.” He said ithe way someone might comment on the weather, all while watching her with quiet, unhurried attention.

Maya answered honestly. “I figure obsessing over it won’t get me anywhere.”

She genuinely couldn’t work out why an old photograph would contain a future version of herself, let aloric one holding a small boy she’d never seen before in her life.

Four days of living alongside Edric had given Maya a reasonable working theory about his personality.

He was the kind of person who looked genial until it came to it.

When the three of them shared the same roof, his conversations ran lean and stripped of everything

unnecessary.

It usually went something like:

“Hungry?”

“Hungry.”

“Eat?”

“Eat.”

“Get to bed.”

“Okay.”

The two kids dragged out every single response, each syllable stretched long and lazy, like two little robots running on the same program.

Edric asked, got his answers, and left. He never lingered.

As for why Maya had decided he was genuinely good–natured, well, his patience was simply beyond anything she’d encountered before.

The man could endure anything.

Chapter 200 forgotten Past –

Peach

Just yesterday, Edric had needed to step out, so he’d left the two of them in the office with instructions to

stay put.

They’d been reasonably well–behaved at first, sitting on the sofa and working the Rubik’s cube.

But even the most entertaining thing in the world loses its appeal after three straight days, and a Rubik’s cube was hardly the most entertaining thing in the world to begin with.

Maya had been slowly calcifying into something resembling moss, draped across the sofa in a boneless heap, when she grabbed a throw pillow without any particular intention and flung it directly at Alfred’s head.

Alfred’s head absorbed the impact. He lifted his face.

His expression was perfectly flat and mildly exasperated.

The unspoken question of “now what?” hung in the air between them.

Maya wasn’t looking at him. She sat up and said it very clearly, one syllable at a time. “I’m bored.”

She’d never imagined that word coming out of her own mouth. That had always been Alfred’s word.

Alfred, whose capacity for understanding human emotional complexity hovered somewhere around zero, interpreted “bored” as “wants to play.”

He stood up immediately, picked up the pillow beside him, and brought it down hard on his sister’s head.

Maya hadn’t seen it coming.

The impact sent her face–first onto the floor.

She bit the inside of her cheek and turned to look at him with an expression of pure, bewildered disbelief.

Half an hour later, the office looked like the aftermath of a small natural disaster. Both children had gone completely feral.

Maya had a throw pillow in one hand and was seated squarely on Alfred’s back, her victory grin stretched

[ wide and radiant.

Alfred had given up fighting it entirely and was serving as her horse with the resigned dignity of someone who had accepted their fate.

Then the door opened.

Edric stood in the doorway.

Two assistants flanked him from behind, arms full of documents, staring at the scene in front of them with their mouths slightly open.

The office was devastated.

Papers blanketed the floor. Chairs had been knocked askew, and the trash can was tipped on its side with crumpled paper scattered in every direction.

Chapter 200 forgotten Past

15 Peats

One child sat of the other’s back, both of them flushed and bright–faced, hair wrecked beyond repair, clutching throw pillows like weapons. They looked exactly like two dogs who’d seized on their owner’s absence to stage a full–scale riot.

The moment Maya heard the door, her grin evaporated.

Alfred stayed on the floor and stared toward the doorway with a face that revealed absolutely nothing.

The air went very still.

Edric stood at the threshold and looked at the scene for approximately three seconds. Then he turned to his two assistants and said, “Leave the documents by the door. You’re both dismissed.”

The two assistants looked like they’d just been pardoned from a death sentence. They set the files down at lightning speed and were gone.

The door clicked shut.

The three of them were alone.

Edric walked into the room, each step landing on scattered papers with a faint, soft rustle. He made his way to his desk and set down the documents he was carrying.

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