Chapter 3

Ursula's aunt-in-law froze.

Beside her, Ursula's fifth uncle frowned.

"We don't know anything about the compensation money, but the fact is your aunt raised you all these years..."

"Raised me? By making me sleep in the attic through the winter, refusing to take me to a doctor when I ran a fever, feeding me nothing but leftovers?"

I gave a cold smile.

"Should I pull up the family group chat right now and screenshot the message she sent back then? The one that said, 'Ursula's been sneaking eggs again, what an ungrateful little leech.'"

Ursula's fifth uncle opened his mouth, then said nothing.

Of course he'd seen those messages in the family group chat. It was just that no one had ever dragged the thing out into the open before.

Corinne stood in the middle of the crowd, her face flushing red, then draining pale.

Then she dropped straight down onto the ground, slapping her thighs and wailing.

"There's no justice in this world! I broke my back raising this girl, and now that she's got money she won't even know me! My husband died on the road trying to give her a birthday, I raised her in place of her parents all these years, and in the end she won't even let me through the door!"

A few neighbors poked their heads out down the lane to watch the show.

My phone rang.

I picked up. It was Veronica Whitney, the agent from the agency I'd signed with.

Her voice was fast and tight.

"Ursula, what's going on at your place? Someone posted on social media saying you abuse your relatives and you're ungrateful. Clout-chasing accounts are already reposting it, and it's climbing fast. Go look, now."

I opened the app.

Three minutes ago, a freshly registered account had put up a long post. The headline read:

[The True Face of Ursula Matthews, Rural-Farming Influencer With a Million Followers: Refuses to Support the Aunt Who Raised Her, and Publicly Humiliates Her Own Cousin]

The attached photo had been taken in the lane just now.

Corinne sitting on the ground wiping tears, and me standing in the doorway looking down at her, cold-faced.

The angle had been chosen with malice. In the shot I looked exactly like some bully throwing her weight around.

The me in the photo had cold eyes and a downturned mouth, the perfect villain. The frame cut Ursula's aunt-in-law and fifth uncle out completely, leaving only me, standing high above the woman collapsed on the ground.

Below it, hundreds of comments had already flooded in.

[An ungrateful leech in the flesh. A million followers and this is how big her head gets?]

[Helping farmers? Helping herself, more like!]

[Unfollowed. And to think I actually bought the apples she promoted!]

Some of the reposting clout-chasers were big accounts with over a hundred thousand followers, each headline more vicious than the last.

Veronica's messages kept popping up one after another.

[Don't respond yet, the company's already on it. This came on way too hard and fast, something's off...]

I looked at the screen, and out of the corner of my eye I caught Corinne still sitting on the ground wailing, Ursula's aunt-in-law crouched beside her, patting her back with fake sympathy.

Nathan stood at the back of the crowd, head down over his phone, the corner of his mouth curling up like he was typing something.

With my 20/10 vision, I got a glance at his screen.

It was clearly the post-composer page on the app.

He sent it, tucked the phone back into his pocket, and when he lifted his head his eyes met mine.

Nathan blinked, then grinned wide, his lips opening and closing to mouth three silent words.

"How's that?"

I gripped my phone, knuckles white.