Chapter 2

Sylvester went on, "Now that we've made it into the finals, you suddenly say something so ominous in the group. Isn't it obvious? You just want a cut of the prize money."

Zander sent an eyeroll emoji and added, "You didn't even have the ability to form a team and compete yourself. You just randomly joined a group and gave a few half-assed comments. Now, you want a share of the spoils. The nerve!"

Their accusations grew uglier by the second.

I frowned and replied bluntly, "I joined the group because you were asking for help with coursework on the forum. It had nothing to do with the competition, and I never joined for the prize money."

My message had barely gone through when Zander sent a middle-finger sticker.

He wrote, "Still lying, huh? If it wasn't for the money, why would you take the initiative to guide us? Don't tell me you saw some handsome guy in our team photo and your heart started fluttering?"

A female student named Charlotte Unwin jumped in and texted, "The most handsome one on our team is obviously Sylvester, right?"

Sylvester laughed even more brazenly as he wrote, "Oh, Jolene. So you were doing all this for me? Sorry to disappoint you, but I've got high standards. Even if I were blind, I wouldn't be able to compel myself to touch a woman like you."

He posted the only selfie that I had ever shared on my WhatsApp Status into the group chat. Normally, we communicated through the forum group chat. Only Sylvester had my number.

At the beginning, they didn't have any startup funds. I had fronted the five thousand dollars, which Sylvester had received.

Last month, Sylvester's mother, Helen Varney, had been diagnosed with cancer. I had seen him asking for help in the group. Out of kindness, I had asked around to help him secure an appointment with a top specialist and had also covered a significant portion of the medical expenses.

After all, I had been a student too. I knew better than anyone how hard things could be for them.

Later, Sylvester had thanked me in a WhatsApp voice message, saying his mother was undergoing chemotherapy and that the chances of success were very high.

But now, he had completely forgotten everything I had done for him. Instead, he was judging my looks and hurling crude, degrading insults at me.

At that moment, I regretted ever helping him.

I should never have joined this group. They were just a bunch of ungrateful ingrates. None of them was worth the two months I had spent working myself to the bone for them.

"I've said all I need to say. If you insist on using it for the competition, don't regret it later," I texted one final warning.

After sending that message, I realized that Sylvester had removed me from the group.

I didn't think much of it and went back to my own work. When I finally finished, I discovered that Sylvester had made a new post and tagged my student account.

He wrote, "I can't keep quiet about this anymore. I'm posting this as a warning so other students don't get scammed.

"This so-called Jolene Zimmerman claimed she wanted to guide us. After joining our entrepreneurship group, she deliberately stayed vague with her guidance. All the advice and models she gave were plagiarized from other people's work."

"Out of respect for her, we didn't expose her. We relied on our own efforts to fight our way into the finals. Now, she suddenly demanded 20 thousand dollars as 'guidance fees' and insisted on taking 90% of the prize money. She threatened that if we didn't give it to her, she'd make us regret it!"

My entire body went numb in an instant.

In just 40 minutes, the post had already gotten several hundred replies. The comments below were filled with outrage from fellow students.

"She gave you other people's work? Isn't that just plagiarism?"

"People are so vile these days. How dare they ask for 20 thousand dollars in fees for guidance given using plagiarized work? Our school's entrepreneurship competition clearly states that no team is allowed to hire advisors, let alone pay guidance fees."

"She's just a senior. What advisor are you talking about? You calling her that probably makes her feel pretty damn pleased with herself."

Someone asked, "You can't just say all that without proof. I've read her replies on other threads. She really did give a lot of reasonable suggestions."

Zander popped up immediately and retorted, "Of course we have evidence. Screenshots coming right up! Oh, and by the way, Jolene has the hots for Sylvester. After he rejected her, she kept harassing him nonstop. How disgusting."