Chapter 2

I woke up at 6:00 am after barely sleeping all night. I picked up my phone and froze.

Adam had posted a long essay around 3:00 am, attaching a photo of him taking a selfie in a hallway, his eyes swollen and red. There was an ICU sign behind him.

He said he needed the prize money to save his mom, and I'd refused to submit his work for him. Instead, I'd used it to enter the competition. Adam also included a screenshot where I'd told him to do it the proper way. It somehow portrayed me as someone who outright left his mom to die.

There were already a ton of comments below.

"How does someone like this still have the nerve to show his face?"

"He's a thief who stole Adam's work and refused to help him save his mom. What an asshole!"

My hands were trembling. I wanted to explain the situation to them. I wanted to post the entire recording of the group call from yesterday.

The mouse jerked. "Don't do it. Whatever you say now will be taken out of context. Vera is ready to come forward as your girlfriend and accuse you of editing the photos and spreading rumors. Just screenshot these comments. Don't retaliate."

I bit my lip hard and forced myself to open the comments. Then I took screenshots one by one and saved them.

Someone managed to find my Instagram account, and private messages flooded in.

"How did your mom end up with a loser like you?"

"Go to hell, you dumbass! Stop wasting oxygen."

My phone kept vibrating as I opened each message numbly, took a screenshot, saved it, then repeated the same actions.

It felt like there was a lump of cotton stuck in my throat. Even breathing was becoming difficult.

While I was doing all this, my roommate Caleb Litt sat up in bed. After a moment's hesitation, he said in a low voice. "Felix… Vera came over this morning around 5:30 am. She said you wanted her to bring your laptop in for a repair. I told her the laptop wasn't there, and she kept pestering to know where it was. She looked really scary. I didn't dare say anything, so she left."

5:30 am?

Cold sweat rolled down my back as I took out my phone with shaking hands, wanting to check on those cloud drives.

According to the login records, someone had attempted to log in from a different IP address at 4:00 am. The password was incorrect, so the system blocked the attempt.

Someone had been trying to delete my backups. They wanted to destroy all my evidence.

I immediately changed the passwords to all my cloud accounts and enabled two-factor authentication. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely press the right numbers.

The mouse jerked again. "Now that they can't get your laptop or access your cloud drives, they'll find another way. They'll go through the school."

Sure enough, at 10:00 am, Mr. Jackman sent me a message in the group chat, telling me to meet him in his office that afternoon for a talk and that I didn't need to attend the group meeting.

Five minutes later, my senior Adele Cooper privately texted me. "An anonymous person reported you for academic misconduct."

When I met with Mr. Jackman, he threw screenshots of Adam's file in front of me, his expression grim. "His timestamps are all earlier than yours. How do you explain this?"

Before I could say anything, my phone vibrated.

Adam had created a group chat with 200 people and added me to it. Then he sent a voice message. "Felix, here's your final chance. Withdraw from the competition and give my work back to me, and I won't pursue this any further. If not, I'll ensure everyone knows about this. You'd better think this through!"

The others immediately joined in and berated me.

"Yeah, give him an explanation!"

"How shameless. You stole his work and flat-out denied it!"

"How disgraceful to have you as my schoolmate!"

My phone wouldn't stop buzzing as 200 messages flooded the chat within seconds.

Everyone was pressuring me to admit that I was guilty.

I left the group, then showed Mr. Jackman the timeline I'd compiled.

He went through it, his face slowly hardening.

Finally, Mr. Jackman said, "Both of you have clear evidence. I can't decide who's right yet. The department has set a meeting for tomorrow. Bring all your evidence and explain it in person."