"Witness Gerald Whitmore, on the night of December 24, did your daughter leave the house very early?"

"No." Gerald answered without a pause. "It was her birthday that night. We had a party ready for her at home. Around ten o'clock, about an hour before Miss Ji was hurt, she suddenly got a call and rushed out in her car."

"Dad?"

In the courtroom, Candice Whitmore's voice came out rough and cracked as she stared at the middle-aged man not far away.

This was the man who had once spoiled her like she was his little princess.

And now, with just a few flat words, he had crushed every statement she had made.

"Witness Helena Whitmore, what time did the suspect leave home on the night of December 24?"

Candice turned at once to look at her mother, panic flashing across her face.

More than anything, she wanted Helena to tell the truth about that night.

There had been no birthday party. No mysterious phone call either.

She had gone out before dark. That was the fact.

"It was already getting late then. She had also been drinking. It's all my fault as her mother. If only I had stopped her, maybe she wouldn't have caused something this terrible..."

"I'm the suspect's brother. My sister had just gotten into a car accident a few days ago." Nathan Whitmore spoke in a low voice, his face full of pain as he looked toward Candice. "Candice, I know you want Serena Sutton to take the blame for you. But this isn't some childhood mess anymore. This is a murder charge. No matter how much I've always doted on you, I can't just stand by and watch you keep messing up."

Candice looked at her mother and brother in disbelief, like her whole world had just glitched.

Tears slid down from the corners of her eyes, cold and silent.

They had actually all lied for the same story.

Every single one of them had given false testimony.

The judge's voice rang out again, steady and merciless.

"Mr. Kingsley, during her defense, the suspect stated that on the night of December 24, she was with you and did not leave until eight o'clock the next morning. Is that true?"

Candice lifted her eyes and looked at the elegant man sitting not far away, the one who always seemed untouchable, refined, above the mess of ordinary people.

She placed the very last shred of hope she had on him.

Because that night, she really had been with Harrison Kingsley.

As long as he testified for her, everything said before this could be overturned.

"That is not true."

The next second, the man's cold voice came down hard on Candice's heart like a hammer.

For one split second, everything went mute around her. Candice Whitmore lifted her head in disbelief and looked at Harrison Kingsley, the man she had loved through her whole youth.

He stood there in a sharp suit, neat and polished, but his whole body seemed wrapped in frost. There was not a shred of warmth left on him. His eyes were cold to the bone, stripped clean of the tenderness and doting softness he had shown that night. What remained was only his icy voice.

"That night, I was at the hospital with Miss Serena Sutton. The doctors and nurses there can testify for us."

He did not just deny being with her that night. He even gave Serena Sutton an alibi.

Candice froze for a long moment before it finally hit her. Panic rushed up her spine, and she hurriedly looked toward the judge, trying to explain herself.

"No... that's not true! It didn't happen like that! I left very early that night. It was my twentieth birthday. I wanted to give myself to my fiancé, so I went to find him..."

"Heh."

That soft, mocking laugh cut her off on the spot. Candice slowly turned her head and met Harrison's gaze. He was looking at her with naked ridicule, like she was some pathetic joke.

"I, Harrison Kingsley, am not desperate enough to take just anything."

Candice suddenly lost her voice.

Tears slid from the corners of her eyes, one after another, and the bitterness reached all the way to her tongue.

At that moment, she truly did not know how she was supposed to defend herself anymore.

Only now did Candice finally understand.

Her father. Her mother. Her brother. And Harrison Kingsley...

Everything they were doing right now had only one purpose—

They wanted her to take the fall for Serena Sutton.

"All rise!"

The judge's voice rang through the courtroom.

"For the hit-and-run case of 12/24, the court hereby announces its verdict. At 23:35 on December 24, the defendant, Candice Whitmore, caused serious injury through speeding and then fled the scene by car. The facts of the crime are clear, and the evidence is conclusive. She is hereby sentenced to three years and eight months in prison."

Bang.

The judge's gavel came down hard.

Just like that, the man she loved most and the family she held dearest joined hands and sentenced her to ruin.

Candice could not figure it out. How had her whole world turned upside down overnight? Why had everyone abandoned her in the blink of an eye?

The man she loved avoided her like she was poison.

The family she trusted hated her to the core.

It was not until one month after she was sent to prison, when the Whitmore family had a lawyer deliver two DNA test reports, that she finally understood.

Serena Sutton was the Whitmore family's real daughter.

And she—

She was just a counterfeit, a stand-in who had stolen someone else's place.