Chapter 7 The Viper Strikes Back
By 10:00 AM the next morning, the Jingcheng high-society forums were entirely on fire.
I was sitting in the presidential suite of a five-star hotel—having packed my bags and left the Lu mansion at dawn—sipping a freshly brewed espresso as I scrolled through the headlines on my tablet.
brEAKING: SU YAN ASSAULTS LIN WAN! IS THE LU MATRIARCH INSANE? EXCLUSIVE: The Real Reason Behind the Broken Heirloom! Su Yan's Vicious Jealousy!
I raised an eyebrow. Lin Wan and her mother, Madam Lin, were working overtime. Despite the massive public humiliation I had dealt them at the banquet, they had hired an army of internet ghostwriters and PR fixers overnight.
They had spun the narrative perfectly: Madam Lin had pawned the necklace, yes, but only because Su Yan had maliciously frozen the Lin family's legitimate business assets using Lu Chen's seal!
Furthermore, Lin Wan claimed the replica necklace was broken by me in a fit of psychotic rage, and I had "hacked" the screens with fabricated Taobao receipts to frame them.
The comments were a cesspool of hatred directed at me. "Su Yan is a rural trashbag! How did she learn to hack?" "Get out of the Lu family!" "Poor Lin Wan, she's an angel enduring so much abuse from that ugly duckling!"
[DING! Detecting severe reputational damage. Incoming attack from antagonists.]
My phone rang. It was an unknown number. I answered it, putting it on speaker.
"Good morning to you too, Madam Lin," I replied lightly, taking a bite of a buttery croissant. "How are the loan sharks treating you?"
"Shut your mouth!" she shrieked. "Listen to me clearly.
Tonight is the Jingcheng Sovereign Charity Auction.
All the elite families, including the capital's untouchable Ye Family, will be present.
I've ensured your name is on the VIP bidding list. If you don't show up and publicly apologize to Wan'er on your knees, I will release the medical records of your adoptive parents to the public. "
My chewing stopped. The air in the room instantly plummeted to freezing.
"What medical records?" I asked, my voice a dead calm.
"The records proving your adoptive father had a hereditary heart defect," Madam Lin cackled.
"We'll spin it to the press that you purposely withheld his medication to inherit his bakery, and that's why they crashed their van!
We will drag their dead names through the mud until they are remembered as monsters! "
The sheer, unadulterated venom in my heart spiked so hard I saw red. In my past life, they had cut the brakes to kill my parents. Now, in this life, they were threatening to desecrate their memory.
"Madam Lin," I whispered, my knuckles turning white around my phone. "I will be there."
"Good. Wear something cheap, so you don't look too out of place when you beg," she sneered, hanging up.
I set the phone down. A cold, terrifying smile slowly stretched across my face.
"System," I commanded. "Run a Tier-2 deep scan on the Lin Family's entire financial history, focusing on the items they submitted for tonight's Sovereign Charity Auction. Leave no stone unturned. I want every skeleton, every drop of blood, every dirty secret."
[Scanning... Accessing global auction databases, offshore bank accounts, and encrypted communications... Ding!] [Massive vulnerability detected. Generating 'Operation: Total Annihilation' dossier.]
Tonight, I wasn't just going to slap their faces. I was going to sever their heads.