Chapter 2

Five years later. At an art gallery on the western suburbs of City N, a fashion show was currently ongoing. The backstage was abuzz as models and staff scrambled around in preparation for the show. Since this was Braylee's debut fashion show, she was busy inspecting the outifts of the various models. "Mina, could you come over and have a look at this accessory?" someone called out as they beckoned for Braylee. "Sure!" She turned and headed in that person's direction. Earlier, that person had called Braylee "Mina" instead of her real name. That was because "Mina" was now her moniker in the fashion designer world. In the past five years, she had bloomed into a fine fashion designer. On top of that, she even gained quite the following of fans with her designs over the years. After bustling around for some time, she finally stopped and took a break. As she was taking a moment to unwind, she gazed out at the audience and observed their reactions to her designs. Suddenly, she spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Hold on... Isn't that Adley! What is she doing here? From where she was sitting in the audience, Adley appeared to be quite restless. She kept whispering to her assistant, "Well? Have you found out whether she's coming or not?" Her assistant, Penny, replied, "Adley, from what I've found out, this is Mina's solo debut. Besides, I can also confirm that she's definitely back, so she'll appear for sure." Despite what Penny said, Adley was not as confident inwardly. After all, Mina was quite the enigma. All this while, she always kept a low profile and never appeared in any public places. Thus, it was already a miracle that Penny was able to find out about her return. Soon after that, all the models came back onto the runway for their final strut and lined up in one row, indicating that the fashion show was nearing an end. Yet, the center stage where the designer usually stood remained empty. Adley craned her neck and tried her best to see if Mina was walking out from backstage, but there was no sign of her anywhere. As the models made their exits, the crowd gave their final applause, marking the end of the fashion show. However , Mina was still nowhere to be seen. After the audience left, only Adley and Penny remained, and at that moment, Adley's face was already purple with anger. Nowadays, she was one of the most prominent members of the fashion industry. But at the same time, her fame was a hot topic of debate. That was because back then, she had only gotten first place in the Fashion Contest because of her connection to Cara. Even with the support of the Nikolai family, a lot of people still doubted the quality of her work. They did not think that she deserved her fame. However, three years ago, Adley saw Mina's work for the very first time at Fashion Week and was instantly attracted by the latter's designs. Fortunately for her, Mina was still a small-time fashion designer at that time, so she began her journey of plagiarism. Ever since then, she had been copying Mina's ideas for the past three years. Slowly but surely, the comments coming from the fashion industry were changing for the better. As a matter of fact, the moment she heard about Mina returning to the country, she had been eager to meet up with the woman. She had forged up a plan to hire Mina to work for her. After all, she could not keep on stealing her work. But unfortunately for them, Mina was incredibly elusive, and they were not able to even catch a glimpse of her today. With her head hung in disappointment, Adley headed to the washroom to freshen up. Just as she was exiting, she spotted a woman in casual clothing walking toward her. The sight of that familiar face sent a tremor of shock through her. Huh? Isn't that... "Braylee? What are you doing here?" On the contrary, Braylee had already seen Adley in the audience earlier, so she was not the slightest bit surprised to see her half-sister. "I work here," she replied calmly. When she left City N five years ago, she vowed to cut off all ties with the Ryan family. That was why she did not feel the need to say anything more to Adley now. At the same time, it never occurred to Adley that Braylee and Mina would be the same person. Instead, she thought Braylee was just a random staff member here. Thence, thinking about how different their statuses were from each other now, a haughty look crossed Adley's face. "I honestly never thought we would meet again! By the way, is that sickly brother of yours dead yet?" Adley sneered. The words that left her lips were absolutely repulsive.