This Time, I'll Be the Villain's Favorite Daughter novel Chapter 267

Chapter 267 A Child’s Choice

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The tears she shed that time hadn’t been because she was sad about losing someone.

They had come from the overwhelming joy of knowing she had survived, a joy so intense it was almost tearful elation.

So she wasn’t someone who should have been forgotten as a matter of course.

She was a long, lingering dream from his past.

She was also the only surviving proof buried within memories that had gathered dust for years.

That night, the girl rolled all the way to the innermost side of the bed, hiding under the blanket with only a few loose strands of hair spilling across the pillow.

He wasn’t the only one suffering from insomnia that night.

Maya couldn’t sleep either.

When Edric had been little, he had been incredibly sensitive. After getting bullied on the island, he would often squat in a corner and silently cry.

Maya had always rolled up her sleeves and gotten revenge for him.

And now look at him.

The first thing he had done after becoming successful was cast her aside and forget all about her!

Maya could understand his distant, somewhat awkward attitude toward her.

After all, even if Edric still remembered her, from his perspective, that childhood encounter between them had happened a full ten years ago.

Those three short months probably occupied only a tiny, tiny fraction of the ten long years of his life.

Even if Maya took the initiative to talk to him, he might casually say something like, “Oh, I don’t remember. The past should stay in the past.”

Just imagining those words was enough to make her sad.

Thinking of that, Maya pulled the blanket up even higher until almost her entire face was

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Chapter 267 A Child’s Choice

buried beneath it.

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As long as she denied everything fast enough, Edric wouldn’t get the chance to hurt her first.

As New Year’s approached, aside from Toby, who had returned to the Clark Residence, everyone else was home. During this period, Maya had been deliberately avoiding Edric.

Edric, meanwhile, often didn’t even leave his room. Even when they ate together, everyone else chatted while he stayed silent.

He’s so strange. So hard to understand.

Maya thought.

When he was little, every emotion had been written all over his face. Now he was like a closed codebook that no one could open.

Fireworks were strictly prohibited in the residential area, making the holiday incredibly boring. Wendy dragged Raymond out shopping while everyone else was responsible for cleaning the house.

Snow began falling again outside the window.

Maya pressed her face against the glass, squishing her chubby cheeks.

“Alfred, the weather forecast says it’s going to snow for a long time. Can we build a snowman then?”

“Sure, but we’ll have to wait until after New Year’s, when we get back from the island,” Alfred said.

He copied Maya’s posture and pressed his face against the window too. His eyelashes fluttered slightly. “Don’t be scared. I’ll protect you.”

Maya hadn’t actually needed to go in the first place.

But she had still chosen to go with him.

Alfred wasn’t exactly someone with high emotional intelligence, but he knew how an older brother was supposed to protect his younger sister. He would take whatever he had and give it to her.

The conditions on the island would be harsh.

He needed to take good care of her.

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Chapter 267 A Child’s Choice

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Maya couldn’t help letting out a laugh. “Maybe I’ll end up protecting you instead.”

Alfred didn’t believe her.

She simply huffed and said nothing more.

More than ten days before New Year’s, Edric left early because of other matters.

Maya didn’t go downstairs to see him off the day he left.

She stood behind the second–floor window and watched him pull his suitcase across the courtyard. Wearing a black overcoat, with his scarf fluttering behind him in the wind, he kept his head lowered, looking inexplicably lonely.

Aside from the day they first met again, the two of them never exchanged a single word afterward.

Even when they were the only two people left in the living room, Edric remained silent.

He often stared at her with an expression that was impossible to read.

Maya had gone from feeling nervous at first to eventually feeling nothing at all.

New Year’s passed just as uneventfully as it had the year before. Maya received a lot of gifts, and she stuffed every one of them into her room before neatly arranging them in the glass display cabinet.

About ten days after the holiday ended, the Clarks sent people to pick up the children.

During that period, Wendy had spent an entire month giving the two children intensive wilderness survival training.

Of the two children, Maya was the one Wendy worried about the least.

Maya was the child she had personally taught the most, and she was also the only one who had genuinely managed to gradually catch up to her.

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