Just after tenderly instructing Tia to rest early, Mom received an interstellar communication from my brother, Leo. "Leo, when does your survey mission end? Your sister is waiting for you to come back and celebrate!" Before my brother could even speak, Mom asked impatiently. The day I was brought home, Mom and Dad stayed with Tia, who was crying because she "feared losing their affection." Only Leo held my rusted mechanical hand, led me into that spotless home, and told me not to be afraid. The only warmth I ever felt in this family came from him. On the other end of the comms, Leo paused for a moment. "Is it for Nova's programming competition? Isn't that next month?" Mom interrupted him angrily. "God, it's Nova again! Tia is the sister you watched grow up! How many times do I have to tell you? Nova grew up wild in the Lower City; her brain is full of garbage code. She isn't fit to be a Vance." I heard Leo sigh, seemingly unable to comprehend Mom’s hostility toward me. "Mom, sometimes you shouldn't believe everything Tia says. Nova might have unorthodox techniques, but she has a good heart and works hard. If you paid a little more attention to her, you'd see that." "I just tried to comm Nova, but it shows she's offline. She hasn't replied to the messages I sent a few days ago either. Is she not home?" Mom sneered. "She goes offline when she wants, disappears when she wants. Am I supposed to monitor her like a prisoner? She's definitely out fooling around at some underground hacker gathering again. If you can't make it back for Tia's big day tomorrow, then forget it." She paused, then added viciously, "You tell Nova, if she dares not to show up at Tia's celebration tomorrow, she shouldn't bother coming back to this house. To be honest, it's peaceful when she's not here; the home network runs much smoother." Leo tried to defend me again, but Mom coldly cut the connection. Dad walked in just then, taking off his dust-covered exoskeleton armor. Seeing Mom sulking, he asked, "Is the case not going well? Is the neural data from the corpse hard to read?" Mom shook her head and complained, "It's not the corpse, it's Nova again. She must have tattled to Leo; now Leo is playing missing along with her, acting all mysterious." Dad sighed heavily. "She knows we're busy with work, yet she throws a tantrum at a critical time like this. So irresponsible! I'll initiate a forced communication right now; I have to teach her a good lesson." But no matter how he tried to connect, the terminal only displayed the cold text: "Target does not exist or has been destroyed." "That ungrateful wretch. If I'd known it would be like this, we shouldn't have brought her back. She’s nothing but trouble!" Miller, standing nearby, heard the whole exchange and sighed. "When Nova went missing back then, you two used the entire city's surveillance and searched for a whole year. How is it that now that she's back, you act like enemies?" I looked at them, feeling my consciousness core about to shatter. The daughter they brought back wasn't the elegant aristocrat they had imagined. I knew hacking, I knew how to modify cybernetics, but I didn't understand the hypocritical etiquette of high society. When I was fifteen and finally reunited with them, my parents were sitting in the luxurious levitating living room, holding the weeping Tia, coaxing her with infinite patience. Meanwhile, wearing a patched-together hazmat suit, I stood there awkwardly, looking down at my own worn-out mechanical feet with exposed wires. Tia stopped crying when she saw me and asked, pretending to be innocent, "Where did this scavenger robot come from?" My parents' faces darkened instantly. Not because of Tia's words, but because of me. I was the daughter who embarrassed them, completely failing to meet their expectations. "Captain Vance, Dr. Vance, I checked the network logs. There haven't been any missing person reports filed in the last two days," a cyber-crime officer reported, walking over with a holographic pad. "The victim's family must be incredibly heartless to not notice their daughter is gone. Maybe the family relationship wasn't harmonious?" "Is there a parent in this world who doesn't worry when their child goes missing? It's unbelievable." Listening to the discussions around me, I felt a suffocating sorrow. My parents were worried about the victim's family failing to report the case in time, sympathizing with the dead girl. Yet they never once thought about whether I, who had been offline for days, was safe. When I was lost all those years ago, they were willing to drop their work and search the world for me. But now, they presumed my disappearance was just a stunt to get attention. Maybe, the moment I was found, I shouldn't have returned to the Vance family. This is Tia's home, not mine. The years they cared about me the most had long since been filled by Tia. The love that should have been mine would never descend upon me again.