3

"Where is my family?"

The question left his mouth before he could think.

The man looked surprised.

"Young Master?"

"My family."

Adrian's eyes sharpened.

"Where are they?"

The man quickly lowered his head.

"They are currently on their way here. After hearing that you regained consciousness—"

"Leave."

The man's words stopped.

Adrian looked at him.

"Leave the room."

A normal person would have questioned the order.

But the man didn't.

He immediately bowed.

"Yes, Young Master."

The door closed.

And for the first time since waking up...

Adrian was alone.

Silence returned.

But this time, the silence was broken by something else.

Pain.

A sudden, sharp pain exploded inside his head.

His hand immediately grabbed his temple.

"What..."

His vision blurred.

The room began to spin.

Images.

Sounds.

Memories.

They came rushing into his mind like a flood.

Adrian Valen.

Age twenty-six.

The only heir of the Valen family.

Born into wealth.

Born into power.

But unlike the people who only relied on their family's name...

Adrian built his own reputation.

He studied relentlessly.

He mastered business strategies.

He learned things most people his age never even touched.

He wasn't just the son of a powerful family.

He was someone who deserved the position he held.

A genius.

A perfectionist.

A person who carried the expectations of an entire family on his shoulders.

But he wasn't alone.

He had a family that loved him.

A father who was strict but proud of him.

A mother who worried about him every day.

A younger sister who saw him as her hero.

People who didn't see him as an heir.

They saw him as Adrian.

His fingers tightened.

How...

How could someone like this exist?

A person who had everything.

Money.

Status.

Power.

A family.

Love.

Everything Adrian had never experienced.

Then another memory appeared.

A road covered in rain.

A car.

Brakes failing.

The sound of metal crushing.

The moment Adrian Valen's life changed forever.

The accident.

The world thought he would never wake up.

Days became months.

Months became a year.

One year lying in a coma.

One year trapped between life and death.

His family refused to give up.

Doctors said there was no hope.

But they waited.

They believed he would return.

And then...

His body finally gave up.

Adrian Valen died.

And at that exact moment...

Another Adrian opened his eyes.

The man who had been called Subject 001.

The man who had spent twenty-six years being tortured.

The man who had died in a laboratory.

His breathing became heavy.

"So that's what happened..."

He lowered his hand slowly.

He understood now.

This wasn't a dream.

This wasn't an illusion.

He had truly been given another life.

He was inside Adrian Valen's body.

Living Adrian Valen's life.

A life that was supposed to end.

He looked at his hands.

These hands had never held a family.

Never held money.

Never held freedom.

But now...

They belonged to someone who had everything.

A strange feeling appeared in his chest.

Not jealousy.

Not greed.

Something else.

Respect.

The original Adrian Valen was not someone who wasted his blessings.

He worked for everything he achieved.

He protected his family.

He carried responsibility.

Even with all his advantages...

He was not a spoiled heir.

He was someone worthy of the name.

Adrian closed his eyes.

The memories settled.

The past belonged to the original owner.

But the future...

The future belonged to him.

A man who had crawled out of death.

A man who had lost everything.

And now...

A man who had inherited everything.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

The coldness inside them remained.

But something had changed.

"Adrian Valen..."

He whispered the name.

This time, it no longer felt foreign.

It felt like his.

Outside the room, footsteps approached.

His new family was coming.

The family of the man whose life he had inherited.

The family who had waited one year for him to wake up.

Adrian looked toward the door.

For twenty-six years...

He had only known loneliness.

Now...

He was about to meet the people who loved the formal or dead him. Will they still love this him, will they know that their person was dead.

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