Chapter 2

I held up the key in my hand, my voice trembling. "Professor Beaumont, didn't you give me this key last night? You told me to come over and go through the data."

Helena's brows furrowed tightly, and her eyes were filled with undisguised disgust. "When did I ever give you a key? Mack, you actually went and copied my apartment key just to get close to me? You're absolutely shameless!"

Blake leaned back on the couch and tugged at his collar, putting on a startled look. "Helena, don't be too hard on him. He probably just likes you so much that he did something drastic."

She walked over and handed Blake the warm milk, her voice going impossibly soft. "Blake, you're just too kind. That's why guys like him think they can walk all over you."

Then she turned to me, pointed at the door, and snapped, "Get out! And don't ever set foot in here again!"

A wall of comments flooded my vision once more.

[This is hilarious. The villain tried to seduce Professor Beaumont? In his dreams!]

[The male lead's countermove was flawless, wearing the female lead's shirt to mark his territory. I love it!]

[The system is unreal. It transferred all the affection overnight, and now, the female lead can't stand the villain.]

I stared at Helena's cold, unmoved face, and the last shred of hope inside me shattered completely.

So that was the truth. In the face of the system, every ounce of effort and sincerity was nothing but a joke.

I did not know how I made it out of that apartment.

…

Over the next few days, campus became a living nightmare. Helena mocked me openly during lectures and tore apart the lab report I had spent weeks perfecting.

The day final grades were posted, I stared at the number on the academic portal, shaking from head to toe. Helena had failed me without a second thought.

Meanwhile, Blake, who slept through every class and could not tell a beaker from a graduated cylinder, scored a perfect 100.

I clenched my fists around the transcript and stormed into Helena's office. "Professor Beaumont, this isn't right! My data was flawless. My paper cited over a hundred sources. How could I have failed?"

Helena sat behind her desk without so much as glancing up.

"In academic research, integrity matters above all else. A male student who'd go to any lengths to climb the ladder, even copying a female professor's apartment key, is not the kind of person who produces honest data."

I laughed out of sheer disbelief and jabbed my finger at Blake's name on the transcript. "Then what about him? He can't even write a basic chemistry equation correctly. How does he get a perfect score?"

Helena slammed her palm on the desk, her eyes cutting through me like ice. "Blake is pure-hearted. His fundamentals may be weak, but he has a natural brilliance for research that most people couldn't dream of.

"You, on the other hand, are full of nothing but schemes and calculations! Get out!"

She threw me out of her office. I had barely made it to the bottom of the building when a group of people blocked my path. It was my ex-girlfriends.