Chapter 3
Edward Quan ·
7
I struggled to swallow the nausea.
Zhou Yu mistook my silence for a chance.
“Qiaoqiao, speak to your father for me. Ask him to let me go back to the branch.
“If people hear I’ve been dismissed, the image I’ve spent years building will collapse. How will I survive in business?
“I promise I’ll only watch from a distance. Protect you quietly. Never interfere in your life again…”
He reached for my hand.
I had heard enough.
I grabbed the baseball bat by the door and struck him.
“If you’re sick, go see a vet! Stop making me want to throw up!
“How old was I when you started thinking about me like that, you creep?”
I hit his back again.
Still furious, I kicked at his face.
“You take my family’s money, hire a substitute for me, then stand here acting like some devoted lover?
“Even a toad would have more shame!”
The noise brought my parents out of the house.
When they heard his confession, their faces changed with fury.
They had treated him as a brother.
And he had coveted their daughter.
Dad took the bat.
Mum went at him with her bare hands.
Both of them struck him, cursing.
“Animal! You beast!”
They stopped when he lost consciousness.
Dad called the driver.
He had Zhou Yu stripped and dumped outside the office of the city’s best-known tabloid.
“He cares about appearances, does he? Let him lose the lot.”
After that, Dad pressed the auditors to finish quickly.
He wanted Zhou Yu in prison.
Disgust colored the rest of my holiday.
Back at Haicheng University, I ran into Lin Ran.
Somehow, despite her detention record, she was still a part-time lecturer.
She showed off the diamond on her finger.
“See, Ruan Qiaoqiao? Zhou Yu proposed.
“So you’re young. So you can act helpless. He still chose me.
“He told me everything. You confused him before. He’s come to his senses. I’m the woman he really loves.”
I stared.
So, disgraced and with nowhere else to turn, he had gone back to beg her forgiveness.
He forced Su Huihui to end the pregnancy and broke things off.
Then a large diamond won Lin Ran over.
And she, blinded by love, forgave him.
Remembering what she had threatened at the hospital, I felt a sinking unease.
Sure enough, that afternoon she arranged to teach a class in my program.
During the lecture, she made pointed remarks.
“Some girls look so innocent. You wouldn’t believe the tricks they use.
“Seducing their own relatives. Putting on a sugary voice. Even pretending to cut their wrists for attention. Don’t follow their example.”
Her eyes flicked toward me.
Whispers started.
“So Ruan Qiaoqiao’s sweet voice is fake?”
“It’s online too. She used being his niece as an excuse to chase him. Now she’s been exposed, and she still comes to class?”
“I heard she used her rich family to force Lin Ran to apologize…”
Online?
I opened the platform my classmates mentioned.
Someone had reposted the hospital video of Lin Ran attacking me.
She had got there first.
In the comments, she claimed I had failed to seduce Zhou Yu and ordered my family to dismiss him.
They called me the scheming niece.
Paid trolls pushed the video until it spread everywhere.
Worse, I found Zhou Yu’s account.
He had posted that morning.
The camera that recorded our family dinner had become his weapon.
He edited together Lin Ran’s accusations.
At the end, he filmed his face close up and performed the anguish of a man I had supposedly pursued for years.
How difficult it had been to choose Lin Ran.
He was faithful.
I was the troublemaker.
He meant to heap every bit of blame on me and salvage what remained of his reputation.
My phone vibrated.
Mum.
[Qiaoqiao, don’t let the comments upset you. Your father’s dealing with it.]
[I can’t believe there are people as shameless as those two!]
I replied.
[It’s all right, Mum. I’ll handle this myself.]
I began collecting every piece of evidence.
Following Lin Ran’s example, I replied beneath the popular video.
Then I opened a new account and laid out the truth.
My title was simple.
[A match made in hell: a lunatic and a creep.]
That evening, my best friend called, excited.
“Qiaoqiao, you’re trending!
“I’ll send the link. There’s more dirt in the comments!”
8
I opened it.
Trending searches filled the page.
[Haicheng University’s supposed family scandal takes a complete turn.]
[The worst boyfriend ever.]
[Man-worshipping lecturer exposed.]
The comments were in uproar.
“This twist makes me question reality. He wanted his niece, kept a lookalike while dating someone else, got exposed, then smeared the real girl to clear his own name? Is he human?”
“I know him. Zhou Yu. Wasn’t he trending recently for lying naked outside somebody’s office? Detained for disturbing public order?”
“And people used to call him a brilliant young entrepreneur? Did he pay the media to praise him?”
Others turned to Lin Ran.
“What century are we living in? He gets another woman pregnant and has filthy thoughts about his niece, and she still worships him?”
Her former students spoke up too.
“She used to be a visiting lecturer at our university. Famous for favoring boys.
“A boy only had to plead a little, and she’d raise his grade or let him pass.
“A girl asked about her exam result, and she’d tell her to get out and stop being annoying.”
“The worst was leave requests. A boy and girl could ask together, and she’d only approve his.
“She accused girls of pretending to be ill to skip class.
“One girl with a high fever nearly died. She finally reported her under her real name.”
That incident had cost Lin Ran her job.
Unwilling to lose her elegant lecturer’s image, she used her father’s connections.
He sat on Haicheng University’s board.
She transferred there and kept teaching.
Now I understood why detention hadn’t touched her position.
Her father had protected her.
But people were now reporting him for accepting bribes.
The response to my video far outstripped Lin Ran’s and Zhou Yu’s own accounts.
People also uncovered Su Huihui, the lookalike who had stayed out of sight.
Perhaps she finally saw what Zhou Yu was.
Perhaps she simply wanted to save herself.
She unexpectedly spoke in my defense.
On a livestream, crying pitifully, she told her story.
“Zhou Yu knew I was poor. I couldn’t afford university. He used money to pressure me into becoming his mistress.
“He made me dress like Ruan Qiaoqiao. Practice talking like her.
“He made me use her name on WeChat. Made me call him Uncle and play at being his niece.
“Don’t believe Lin Ran! She knew about me all along. She deliberately went after Ruan Qiaoqiao because she was jealous that Zhou Yu preferred me.
“And she was the one who forced me to end my pregnancy!”
She was lying.