Chapter 4

When I came out of the restroom, the officers had arrived.

Leona was already up front, showing them the plagiarized design.

One of them looked reluctant. "Plagiarism cases are hard to prove... You two could settle this privately..."

"Hear that, Carla? Even the police don't want to bother with your mess. What else have you got to say?"

I smiled and walked over to the officer. "Hello. I'd like to file a report against this student, Leona Fletcher, for invasion of privacy. She distributed someone's photos and video without their consent."

Leona froze. "Are you insane? Where did I ever—"

I pointed at the intimate photos of "me" scattered across the floor below the stage.

Her face changed. "No, I—"

Lester caught on fast. "It's not like that. She seduced me and got me to the hotel. My girlfriend was just upset, that's why she printed those photos."

"Being upset gives you the right to violate someone's likeness rights?"

"If everyone did that whenever they were upset, the whole world would fall apart."

Leona lost it, jabbing a finger at me. "Don't you dare twist this. That's not what we meant at all!"

She didn't dare say the person in the photos wasn't me. Saying it would confirm the whole thing was fake.

The officer stepped in front of her. "You're suspected of invading another person's privacy. Please come with us to the police station."

Leona was stunned. "Wait, she's the one who plagiarized, and she stole someone's boyfriend. You're arresting me instead of her?"

Lester moved to block them and was nailed in place by four words: "You want to assault an officer?"

In the end Leona was taken away. As she left, I didn't miss the look she exchanged with Alexandra.

Lester came over to me, guilt in his eyes. "Carla, I'm sorry... but can you drop the charges against Leona? She's just a student. If she gets a record, she's finished when she graduates."

I let out a cold laugh. "I don't know what the two of you are planning, but Lester, take my advice and turn back before it's too late."

His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but in the end Alexandra cut in.

"All right, it's settled. Let's go back, Carla."

But I knew this was only the beginning.

Ten minutes later, a maliciously edited video of me swept across the whole internet, and the entire design industry.

It opened with the line I'd said: "Lester and I went to a hotel."

Spliced in were bits of my life history, and the words PLAGIARIST DOG stamped in huge letters right across my face.

Someone dug up ordinary conversations I'd had with a few male classmates in college and cut them together to make it look like I was throwing myself at them.

The title read: 【Ladies with boyfriends, watch out—step outside and this serial homewrecker will steal your man!】

The whole internet was condemning me for wrecking someone's relationship, calling me shameless.

They called me a campus escort, a stain on the university's reputation, and demanded the school expel someone like me.

A few teachers in the design department even named me directly, swearing they'd never hire Carla Fox.

My name went viral overnight. Just not the good kind.

I saved screenshots of the IP sources and timestamps from the earliest accounts that posted the video.

Worse still, someone unearthed the fact that my birth parents had both died in a car crash the year I came of age, and claimed it was because I'd cursed them to death.

The next day in class, the classmates who used to be friendly all steered clear of me.

Someone had moved my desk to the very back row, right next to the trash can.

During the break, my homeroom teacher called me to the office. "Carla, this incident of yours has caused too much fallout. You'll be suspended for two weeks."

"Also, the design competition prize will be passed down to the runner-up. Go home and rest up."

Walking out of the school, it hit me all at once—the runner-up. Wasn't that my dear friend Alexandra?