On the day the fake will disinheriting the adopted child was revealed, the unfilial children were left dumbstruck as their ‘late father’—seemingly brought back to life on the big screen—exposed their crimes
CHAPTER I: SHADOWS BENEATH THE OLD EAVES
That poor city nestled amid barren, desolate hills, where every late afternoon, smoke from modest thatched roofs blended with thick, murky mist to paint a bleak, melancholy picture. In a secluded corner of the street, where a bumpy red-clay road wound past moss-grown single-story houses, stood an ancient house weathered by time.
It used to be a refuge for a man who had weathered countless storms and trials of life. In his twilight years, when his strength had utterly failed him, standing by his side was not the flesh-and-blood children he had labored to bear, but an adopted child whom he had rescued from a riverbank garbage dump a decade before.
While his three biological children—those who had long ago abandoned this impoverished land to chase after illusory glory in bustling major cities—were entirely absent during the agonizing days of their father’s severe illness, that adopted child quietly stayed put. Day after day, the calloused hands of the once-abandoned child had become his sole, devoted support, feeding him spoonfuls of porridge, wiping away his beads of sweat, and soothing the old man through every agonizing chest pain.
Yet, the law of life and death is inescapable. The day the father drew his final breath, the small house plunged into a quiet, mourning silence. And at that exact moment, before the body had even grown cold, the three biological children abruptly appeared.
They did not return to mourn with the hearts of filial children; instead, they returned with greedy eyes, hurried footsteps, and calculations as cold as knife blades. In their eyes, their father’s departure was not a painful loss, but a golden opportunity to scoop up a massive fortune, including a sprawling estate and accumulated stock shares from a lifetime of labor.
Right from the first moments of setting foot back in the old house, disdain was clearly etched across the faces of the biological offspring. They looked at the adopted child as if eyeing an unpaid beggar clinging on for a free ride, barking orders arrogantly and bluntly declaring they would wipe the child’s name off the funeral registry under the pretext of “not sharing the same blood.”
— “You’ve stayed here all these years, and the fact that our father raised and educated you was already a massive favor. Now that he’s gone, this fortune belongs to our family’s bloodline; don’t even dream of a single inch of land or a single cent!” – the eldest child sneered, holding a cigarette between his lips, blowing hazy white smoke into the gloomy atmosphere of the living room.
The second child chimed in with an equally venomous tone: “That’s right! It’s best if you pack up and leave this place before we call people to throw you out onto the street. Don’t be thick-skinned enough to cling to an estate that doesn’t belong to you!”
The youngest child—who had just returned from a major city wearing expensive designer clothes but harboring unmistakable pragmatism—walked over to the old mahogany cabinet where the deceased’s vital documents were kept, eyes flashing with intense greed.
The adopted child did not argue, nor uttered a single word of complaint. With a composed face and deep eyes, they looked at them with an indescribable calmness. That forbearance was foolishly mistaken by the biological siblings for weakness, for the fear of a helpless outcast without backing. And that blind arrogance drove them straight into a meticulously crafted trap, perfect down to the smallest detail.
CHAPTER II: THE SELF-CRAFTED FORGED WILL
The night before the official will reading, the three siblings gathered around a large tea table in the living room. Scattered across the table were blank sheets of paper, Chinese ink, and old legal document copies.
Greed had blinded them, making them forget the most fundamental human morals. Without waiting for legal transparency or a fair ruling from a lawyer, they drafted a completely forged will themselves. In that document, the entire estate, land, and most valuable assets were comprehensively transferred to the three biological children under package deals, while explicitly stripping the adopted child of all rights and even framing the child with charges of “disrespect and insolence” to silence any skepticism from neighborhood gossip.
— “This is perfection! My father’s signature is copied identically, not a fraction off thanks to the mold I carved myself from old letters,” – the eldest child triumphantly held up the paper under the yellowish light, laughing out loud in utter satisfaction.
— “Brilliant! Tomorrow, when the lawyer and respected elders of the neighborhood arrive as witnesses, we will legitimately use this document to kick the adopted child out onto the street and completely monopolize the estate,” – the second child sipped expensive red wine, eyes sparkling with overflowing contentment.
They passed the forged will around, nodding in mutual praise of their own cunning. They fancied themselves supreme masterminds, seizing the moment to triumph in life’s ultimate game. Little did they know that in this world, those who think themselves the smartest are often the ones who lead the horse straight into its own trap, tying their own hands to the execution stake of downfall.
Right next to the wall of the adjoining room, in the silent darkness, the adopted child stood quietly, hand tightly gripping a tiny USB flash drive containing carefully encrypted data. A faint, fleeting smile crossed the corners of their lips.
They want this farce to end with a heist? Then let the curtain fall in the grandest way possible, – the thought flashed through the adopted child’s mind with chilling composure.
CHAPTER III: THE STAGE OF TRUTH AND TRIUMPHANT SMILES
The next morning, pale sunlight pierced through the dense fog of the poor city, casting rays upon the porch of the ancient house. The atmosphere in the living room grew more suffocating and tense than ever before.
Surrounding the long table were the three biological children in neat mourning attire, wearing sorrowful expressions that failed to conceal their naked triumph. Sitting opposite them was an elderly lawyer invited to witness and read the will, alongside several reputable village elders.
The adopted child stood back in a corner of the room, hands hanging loose, head bowed in an air of feigned helplessness and submission. This scene only served to push the three siblings’ arrogance to its peak. Stepping to the center of the room, the eldest child cleared his throat, putting on the air of a newly minted head of the household, and boomed out:
— “Respected elders, aunts, uncles, and dear lawyer. Today, our family holds the reading of our late father’s final will before he passed away. To avoid unnecessary disputes, we have preserved a legitimate will document personally signed by our father before his final moments.”
With that, he pulled the forged will document they had painstakingly labored over last night out of his leather briefcase, solemnly placing it on the table before the lawyer.
The elderly lawyer frowned, adjusting his reading glasses, carefully flipping through each page. The more he read, the stranger his expression became. He raised his head, staring straight at the three biological children with a gaze full of suspicion and compassion.
— “This document… are you all certain this is the signature and final wish of the late master?” – the lawyer asked in a deep, gravelly voice, cutting straight to the point.
The second child hurriedly lunged forward, slamming the table with absolute certainty: “One hundred percent certain, lawyer! That is our father’s handwriting, there’s no mistaking it. Please publicly read the clauses so we can proceed with the inheritance transfer procedures!”
The three siblings exchanged glances, inwardly triumphant in the belief that everything was safely within their grasp. The youngest child even cast a supreme look of contempt at the adopted child, as if mocking the foolishness of someone walking away empty-handed.
— “Very well, if you insist on making it public…” – the lawyer sighed, preparing to read the document.
Right at that suffocating moment, the adopted child slowly stepped out from the corner of the room. No loud noises, no angry expressions. They walked straight to a large projection screen set up in the corner of the room—something the three siblings had initially assumed was just for displaying memorial images of the deceased.
— “Wait a moment, lawyer,” – the adopted child’s calm yet resonant voice shattered the silent space. – “Before this forged will is read to strip away my rights and legitimize the greed of these three individuals, I think we should view a short video clip. This is the truest final wish, recorded live by the late father himself during his final hours of life.”
The three siblings jolted, their faces draining to a pale white. The eldest child barked angrily: — “What nonsense are you blabbering?! My father is dead! Don’t fabricate stories to disrupt the funeral!”
— “Fabricated or not, please direct your eyes to the large screen,” – the adopted child smirked slightly, plugging the tiny USB into the connection port and pressing play.
CHAPTER IV: THE ROAR FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE AND THE PERFECT TRAP
Light burst forth from the large screen, tearing through the dark corner of the room.
Everyone in the room held their breath, fixing their eyes forward. On the screen, images appeared sharp down to every detail: the familiar bedroom where the elderly father lay on an old wooden bed. But what left everyone present paralyzed was not the setting, but the figure appearing in the frame.
It was the late father himself!
He was not lying motionless as everyone imagined; instead, he sat propped up against the headboard, his complexion somewhat tired yet his eyes extraordinarily sharp, bright, and resolute. On the bedside table sat a motion-optimized video camera, capturing the entire panoramic scene with a wide-angle view.
— “I know what you’re thinking, and I know all too well the unfilial, bone-deep greed of the three biological children I painfully birthed,” – the warm, resonant, and authoritative voice of the father echoed through the speaker system, piercing every eardrum of those sitting in the room.
The eldest child collapsed into a chair, legs turning to jelly, face draining completely of blood. The second and youngest children dropped their jaws, eyes wide open, staring fixedly at the screen as if witnessing a corpse rise from the dead.
— “For months, when I was bedridden and severely ill, not a single one of you bothered to drop by to ask after me, save for the adopted child I took in. You turned your backs on family ties, waiting only for the day I died to tear apart my fortune. I knew full well you’d crawl back here after I drew my last breath, and I knew you’d pull dirty tricks, forging a fake will to monopolize this estate,” – the father on the screen offered a faint, bitter, and sarcastic smile.
The biological siblings shook like leaves in the wind, cold sweat pouring down their foreheads. They realized that months ago, their father had seen right through their entire dark conspiracy, yet instead of exposing them immediately, he had quietly laid a masterpiece of a trap.
— “You love forging wills, don’t you? You love leading the horse into its own trap?” – the father’s voice dropped, as razor-sharp as a knife blade. – “I prepared a true, authentic will, legally preserved and notarized by state authorities half a year ago. In that document, all my land, property, and legitimate assets have been signed over with full ownership transferred to the adopted child—the only one devotedly caring for me in my final days. As for the three unfilial children? You won’t receive a single penny, save for bearing full legal responsibility before a court for document forgery and fraud resulting in asset misappropriation!”
Crash!
The youngest child tumbled backward off the chair, sprawling onto the floor, stuttering incoherently. The eldest child clutched his head and wailed in utter despair, realizing that his own blind greed, the very forged handwriting they had penned with their own hands last night, had become a tightening gold ring around their necks, shoving them straight into prison.
The elderly lawyer slowly stood up, pulling out a document folder bearing the bright red stamp of the state notary office from his leather briefcase—the true will the father had entrusted beforehand. Placing the document folder on the table, he stared straight at the biological offspring with boundless contempt:
— “Everything is clear. The forged will you crafted yourselves serves as material evidence proving the crime of fraud before the law. The police are waiting outside.”
Right at that moment, police sirens wailed loudly from the top of the alley, shattering the tranquil atmosphere of the poor city. A squad of criminal police marched straight into the living room, coldly reading out arrest warrants for the three unfilial siblings on charges of document forgery and asset misappropriation fraud.
The adopted child stood quietly in the corner of the room, reaching out to turn off the projection screen. The video ended with the contented smile of the late father. Letting out a long sigh of relief, the child stepped toward the door, watching the morning light gradually illuminate through the lush green foliage of the vast estate.
Justice had been served, and greed had ultimately buried its creators in bitterness and humiliation.
