Chapter 5 She Will Never Back Down

"What's wrong?"

Hearing Nicole's words, Seraphine quickly let go of her and looked down at her phone.

With just one glance, all the color drained from her face.

[Housewife Jealous of Famous Designer?]

[Seraphine Reports Vivian for Plagiarism - What Secret Lies Behind This?]

[Genius Designer Vivian Battling Cancer Responds to Controversy via Livestream!]

These were the news notifications pushed to Nicole's social media.

"Seraphine, don't look at these. Once the truth comes out, people online will know which one of you and Vivian is the real disgusting demon."

Seeing that Seraphine had also noticed her phone, Nicole quickly stepped back a few paces, grabbed her phone, and randomly opened one of the news articles.

Soon, Vivian's face appeared before them.

"Mr. Stuart and I are truly innocent. Mr. Stuart is good to me only because he knows I'm dying soon and feels some sympathy for me."

"Sigh, speaking of which, Mr. Stuart and I were meant to be but not destined to last. Back then, we had a great relationship, but Seraphine drugged Mr. Stuart and climbed into his bed, so Mr. Stuart and I broke up..."

"Forget it, these are all old matters, let's not bring them up."

"I'm doing this livestream today to tell you all that every single one of my designs was drawn by me personally. Please don't be influenced by rumors."

In the livestream, Vivian wore delicate makeup and cried pitifully.

Seeing her like this, her fans felt terribly sorry for her and quickly comforted her in the livestream chat.

[I've seen photos of Seraphine. She's really beautiful, but unfortunately, her heart is truly vicious.]

[What's the use of being beautiful? Vivian can design jewelry - can she?]

[In terms of talent, she can't compare to Vivian. Otherwise, she wouldn't resort to falsely accusing Vivian to get attention.]

[I know Seraphine. Back in college, she loved stealing other people's things. Who knew she'd now be stealing other people's men and designs?]

[Put out Seraphine's contact information. Let's all call and curse her out together.]

"These people are going too far. Spreading someone's private information online is illegal. I'm going to find someone to sue them right now!"

Nicole was standing right beside Seraphine and could also see the comments from those online users in Vivian's livestream. Being hot-tempered, she immediately wanted to contact a lawyer to help Seraphine get justice.

"Forget it. Too many people online have been fooled by Vivian. We don't have the energy or enough money to sue them one by one."

Seraphine grabbed Nicole's hand, her head lowered in a bitter smile.

"Besides, didn't you say that once the design competition committee investigates everything, those voices cursing me will gradually disappear?"

"But what they're saying is so horrible."

Nicole looked at her with sympathetic eyes.

"It's fine. Those people can only rant online. They can't actually affect my life. At worst, I just won't look at my phone for a while. Perfect timing - I need to focus on organizing the materials to report Vivian anyway."

Seraphine patted the back of her hand reassuringly.

"Alright then."

Seeing her attitude was so firm, Nicole could only temporarily give up on suing Vivian and those extreme netizens.

Seraphine thought that by ignoring the negative news, she could make the controversy end quickly.

But reality showed her that she had underestimated both the netizens' persistence and Vivian's shamelessness.

That very evening, the cyberbullying campaign against her quietly escalated.

Her college photos were posted online. People who hated her photoshopped her pictures into funeral portraits and spared no effort in spreading rumors about her.

And this wasn't even the worst of it. The worst thing was that her phone number was leaked.

"Want to hook up?"

"You little bitch, come keep me company tonight."

"You homewrecker, why don't you just die?"

Over the following days, people constantly called or texted to harass Seraphine. Every time she picked up her phone, there would be hundreds of new vulgar messages.

Seraphine was nearly driven crazy by the overwhelming cyberbullying. Although Nicole stayed with her the whole time, she still had nightmares every night.

It was at this time that Charles's call came through.

"Hello, Charles..."

Although she knew Charles's heart had always been with Vivian, they had been husband and wife for seven years after all.

So when she saw the incoming call, a hidden hope rose in Seraphine's heart.

Maybe Charles was calling to comfort her?

However, after the call connected, what Charles said hit her like a blow to the head.

"Scared now? Seraphine, if you don't want to keep getting cursed at, immediately withdraw your report to the committee and go to the hospital to properly apologize to Vivian."

Did he know what he was saying?

She was being cyberbullied, and he wasn't worried about her at all. Instead, he was telling her to apologize to Vivian.

She understood now.

Her negative news had been trending on social media all this time - he must have had a hand in it.

No matter how capable Vivian was, she was just an emerging designer. How could she have the ability to organize such a massive cyberbullying campaign?

That level of cyberbullying could only be controlled by someone like Charles, the CEO of a publicly traded company.

Instantly, an icy chill emerged from Seraphine's tailbone. Seraphine felt like all the blood in her body had frozen.

"Charles, you and Vivian can manipulate public opinion, but you can't change the facts."

"I won't back down. One day, I'll make everyone see Vivian's true face."

After a long while, Seraphine finally managed to find her voice.

After hoarsely stating her position, she hung up on Charles without hesitation.

Seraphine had just tossed her phone onto the sofa beside her when it started vibrating again.

"Charles, are you done yet? I've already made it very clear - I won't give in to you."

"If you have time to threaten me, you'd be better off spending more time helping your precious her collect evidence that she didn't plagiarize my work..."

Seraphine didn't want to answer the phone at first, but it kept ringing nonstop.

Left with no choice, she closed her eyes, picked up the phone, answered the call, and shouted angrily at the person on the other end.

"Are you Sean's mother? I'm not your husband. I'm Marlowe Bell, Sean's kindergarten teacher."

The other end of the line was quiet for a long time before a woman's sigh came through.

"Sean got into a fight with a classmate at school. Can you come to the hospital?"