Chapter 59: A Beautiful Dream Shattered

Inside a villa, a young man in a sharp suit sat behind a desk, staring at the photograph in his hand.

If An Luo were here, she would have been greatly shocked.

Because the person in that photograph was her!

But the man was staring at the photograph, and not at her.

Yes, what the man was looking at was the pendant around An Luo's neck.

……

After sending the email, An Luo kept scrolling the Hot search. In just this short while, the two posts related to her had both climbed into the top ten of the Hot search.

A certain someone was over the moon.

In a suite at a five-star hotel, watching the constantly rising popularity and follower count, Xu Jing excitedly shouted several times in the room.

She silently calculated in her heart.

According to the plan, riding this wave of popularity, doing a Live Stream tonight would surely gain quite a few more followers.

Becoming an overnight sensation was a given!

From now on, she would be a major internet celebrity too!

At this moment, Xu Jing seemed to see countless banknotes flying toward her, and her whole head went dizzy with euphoria.

"Right, for tonight's Live Stream, I still need to hurry and buy a few nice outfits, get a new hairstyle, and put on a beautiful makeup look."

The plan was well laid out, but her bank card balance dragged her back to reality.

She frowned and picked up her phone to send a message.

"Everything's been done, why hasn't the rest of the money been transferred over yet?"

"You're the daughter of a prestigious listed company, surely you're not going to go back on your word, right?"

The next moment, seeing the transfer notification, she immediately beamed with joy.

The room's phone rang. It was the front desk calling to ask if she needed to extend her stay; if not, she would need to check out before twelve.

Holding the two hundred thousand that had just hit her account and was still warm, Xu Jing—who was dreaming of imminent fame and reaching the pinnacle of life—spoke with far more confidence than just a little.

"What's the rush?! I'll extend for another week!"

After hanging up the phone, Xu Jing changed her clothes and went out—she still had to go shopping.

On her side, preparing joyfully for tonight's Live Stream and overnight fame, she was completely oblivious to the fact that public opinion had already reversed.

……

At half past eight in the evening, Xu Jing appeared in the Live Stream Room wearing exquisite makeup.

Less than five minutes after starting the stream, a large wave of netizens poured in.

: Let me see what else this woman can say.

: I'm pretty curious too.

: Starting a Live Stream at a time like this—trying to apologize in public?

Unfortunately, the bullet comments scrolled too fast for Xu Jing to read clearly, or perhaps she was still immersed in her sweet dream of overnight fame and fortune and unwilling to wake up.

When the time was about right, she put on an expression of agonizing remorse.

"I was An Luo's classmate for four years. I never imagined she was actually this kind of person!"

The next moment, the emotions she had painstakingly built up instantly fell apart.

: Excuse me, are you on 2G? Your internet's that slow? You don't even follow your own posts?

: Maybe she just doesn't have internet at all?

: I'm leaving, really boring. She's nothing but a lying, attention-seeking clown!

The audience in the Live Stream Room instantly dropped by more than half.

Watching those bullet comments, a bad premonition surged in Xu Jing's heart. She tapped open her phone and saw that the Comment section under the Hot search had already completely reversed.

It turned out that the family member of the patient whose treatment had been delayed by the Gu Family, missing the timely kidney transplant, had posted a video.

: If this is true, why didn't Gu Family's Chairman switch? What was he waiting for? The more you think about it, the more terrifying it gets!

: His life is a life, but other people's lives aren't?! Ugh! Trash!

: I'll never buy anything from Gu Family again!

……

: Look at the latest post, everyone—someone caught Xu Jing buying luxury goods and staying at a five-star hotel. By the way, where did a jobless person like her get the money?

: Could it be…

Xu Jing grabbed her hair in despair, and the hairstyle she had spent two hours carefully styling instantly turned into a bird's nest.

She frantically tried to explain in the Live Stream Room.

"No, what they're saying isn't true!"

"It's not like that!"

: I bet she's just jealous of An Luo's good luck, so she's targeting her.

Seeing this bullet comment, Xu Jing instantly jumped up.

"I didn't! She's the one who was jealous that I had a rich boyfriend, and she used her looks to flirt with men everywhere, and in the end she even stole my boyfriend away!"

At this moment, several bullet comments popped up.

: Give it a rest. Everyone in our class knows An Luo never dated anyone during her four years of college.

: I think I know what she's talking about. When her rich second-generation boyfriend came to our class to find her, he saw An Luo, became smitten with her looks, and kept pestering An Luo afterwards. But An Luo clearly rejected him—several times, in fact.

Xu Jing kept shaking her head.

"It's not like that! It's all her fault!"

"If it weren't for her, how would my ex-boyfriend have broken up with me? How would I have been so dazed and confused from heartbreak, failed my exams, failed my graduation thesis, and ended up not even getting my degree?!"

"All of this — it's entirely her fault!"

After Xu Jing finished screaming these words hysterically, she closed the Live Stream Room, but perhaps because she was too flustered, she tapped the wrong spot and didn't notice the screen was still on.

She found Gu Yunqing's phone number and spoke incoherently.

"Miss Gu, how could this happen? The netizens are all cursing me — what should I do now?"

"Shut up, say no more!"

Xu Jing assumed Gu Yunqing didn't want to own up to it, so she simply threw caution to the wind and went straight to threats.

"You came to me on your own initiative, and those two posts were posted because you told me to. If you refuse to help me, I'll tell everyone that you were the one who orchestrated all of this!"

Gu Yunqing on the other end was nearly driven mad with rage by her.

"Shut up, you idiot!"

"Check your camera properly!"

Hearing this, Xu Jing only then noticed the stream was still on.

The phone instantly slipped from her hand and dropped to the floor. All color drained from her face. She stiffened, mechanically shut down the equipment, then with a thud collapsed onto the ground.

It's over!

Soon, a knock came at the door, but she seemed not to hear it at all, sitting on the floor in a daze the whole time.

The people outside had no patience to keep waiting, so the hotel staff swiped the room door open.

A female staff member walked in first, checked things over, saw that there was nothing wrong with Xu Jing, then nodded to the several people outside.

"Officers, you may come in now."

Officer Lu walked up to Xu Jing with his colleagues.

"Ms. Xu Jing, you posted false rumors online, causing an extremely vile impact. We now ask you to come with us to cooperate with the investigation."

And the very same scene was playing out at the Gu Family.

"Let go of me! I don't know anything!"

Gu Yunqing struggled with all her might.

"Mom, A-Jing, hurry and hire a lawyer for me!"

Gu Madam chased after her, shouting as she went.

"Qing'er!"

But in the end she could only watch helplessly as Gu Yunqing was taken away.

Gu Madam covered her face with both hands. In just a few short days, the skin she normally spent a fortune on maintaining each month had gradually reverted to what it should look like at her age.

Wrinkles, freckles, and white hair at the temples — the whole person looked utterly exhausted, aged more than ten years compared to before.

"Old Gu is still lying in the hospital with only a week left, and now Qing'er has been taken away too. How did it end up like this?"

Gu Yunjing beside her kicked the leather sofa hard and cursed through gritted teeth.

Then he sat down to comfort Gu Madam.

"Mom, you go first and hire the best lawyer for my sister."

He looked with a dark expression at the photo of An Luo on the table.

"As for Dad's side — leave it to me!"