Chapter 62

Deborah knew their enemy this time wasn't someone to take lightly.

When Alexia rejoined the livestream, the chat had already exploded with comments flying in nonstop.

But she didn't seem fazed. Even though some remarks were clearly meant to provoke, she let them stay.Instead of reacting, she picked up her makeup brush and got to work. "Let's do a simple office makeup look today. And since you're all here for the drama-yes, I'll spill a little tea about the rich and powerful while we're at it."

Just then, a bunch of new accounts started popping up in the stream. Within moments, tips came flooding in, so many that the chat barely kept up.

The leaderboard lit up. Some viewers started competing for the top spots, but one name stayed firmly planted at number one. The top donor-someone going by the name Shepard-was tipping ridiculous amounts, so much that the others didn't stand a chance of catching up.①

Viewers were stunned and hyped. The guessing game started immediately.

"Wait, what's happening? Did all the rich heirs show up just to keep their secrets hidden?"

"No joke, I checked some of their profiles. These people are loaded!"①

"Who is this Shepard guy? His profile's locked, but he's throwing money like it's nothing."⑰

"New account. Zero posts. Only follows Alexia. That's gotta mean something."

Alexia didn't comment. She just held up a bottle of foundation to the camera with a faint smile. "This shade reminds me of theexact same shirt Zayne Jenkins wore when he took my math competition results to his university interview."

The moment she said that, the chat went wild.

Marilee's fans swarmed the stream. "Stop making things up! Where's the proof?"

Alexia gave a low chuckle and pulled open a drawer. She dropped a worn-looking gold medal onto the table with a sharp clink. On the back, instead of her name, Zayne's was faintly engraved, just barely covering up the original.

"Just a few days before the ceremony, I was grounded. The family pulled some strings and had Zayne collect the medal for me. He posed with it, took credit, and never returned it. Later, they tampered with it and swapped out the name. Faking a website, editing records; and tweaking transcripts wasn't hard back then. Ten years ago, it was actually pretty common for rich families to buy their way into top schools with fake documents. But taking your own sister's achievements and passing them off as yours? That's just plain pathetic."

By now, the internet detectives had done their job. All the pieces were falling into place.

"Just checked the official records. Alexia was on the gold medalist list for the International Math Competition ten years ago!"

"She was a legend back in middle school. But instead of going to a top high school, she chose an regular school in Bymill. I remember teachers used to talk about it like it was the biggest waste of talent."

"Ugh, the way some parents play favorites is disgusting."

Right then, a stream of generous tips began pouring in from an account named CarrieK, grabbing Alexia's attention mid-stroke.

Alexia paused her eyebrow drawing and glanced at the camera. "The one tipping non-stop... Miss Kennedy,right? Back when the Jenkins and Kennedy families were arranging a marriage, did Evelyn ever brag to you about Zayne's genius and how he got accepted early into a top university?"

The chat instantly blew up with reactions.

"Wait, this ID looks familiar! Is she talking about Carrie Kennedy-the daughter of that real estate mogul in Afoross?"

"OMG. It is her! She just posted pics from some fancy party, and Zayne's right there, standing by the champagne tower!"

The CarrieK account replied almost immediately, "Yeah, they said Zayne was super smart and a child genius. They hyped him up all the time."

Alexia casually went back to doing her brows. "That's funny. He didn't even qualify to take the same entrance exam as me."

While most of the chat cheered her on, a few critical voices popped up.

"If that's true, why didn't you say anything back then? Why wait until now?"

Alexia placed her brow pencil down and stared straight into the camera. "That's a fair question.Why didn't I fight back? Because no one in my family would've listened. No one stood by me. My parents told me to stay quiet, not to mess up Zayne's future. They said he was the pride of the family, and I was just supposed to support him. They even promised me that if I kept quiet and played along, they'd finally show me the love I'd been desperate for."

She went quiet for a beat, then spoke in a softer voice. "I really believed them. But I was wrong. They lied to me."

That one line hit hard, and a wave of sympathy washed through the chat.