The Heiress's Game

Ningweier has been restless these past two days.

When eating, he poked at the rice in his bowl with his chopsticks for a long time without taking a bite; when scrolling through his phone, he swiped around on the screen with unfocused eyes.

Ning Limei passed by her twice, but she didn't notice.

The second time, Ning Limei stopped, stood to her side and slightly behind, and looked at her for a few seconds.

"Vell".

Ningwei's shoulders twitched. "Mom?"

Ning Limei walked around to her and sat down on the sofa opposite her.

"Are you planning something bad?" Ning Limei's voice was calm, not like an interrogation, but like she was checking accounts with a close friend.

"I can tell just by looking at your guilty face. You've always been like this since you were little; your eyelids twitch whenever you do something wrong."

Ningville didn't refute it. She couldn't.

Lying to her mother is a very difficult thing to do successfully—from childhood to adulthood, every time she secretly changed her test scores, secretly drove the car in the garage, or secretly used her credit card to buy a limited edition bag, she would be caught the moment the door opened.

She gripped her phone tightly, remained silent for a long time, and then recounted in detail how Li Minmin and Susan had seduced her.

Banners, art museums, hiring people to smear Julie, so that Gu Zhenxing can see clearly what kind of person she is.

She spoke quickly, trying to soften her words with speed, but every word she uttered felt like a stone hitting her own feet.

Ning Limei listened quietly, then looked at Ning Weier with a tired, almost disappointed expression.

"When will you learn to use your brain?"

"Think three steps ahead before you do anything. First, who can find out if you do this? Your two friends, can they be trusted? What benefits do you give them for them to do things for you?"

But the benefits you can offer, others can offer too. The loopholes you can find, those who write smear articles can also find.

Those bloggers you criticized could easily sell screenshots to anyone with a flick of their wrist.

Ningville opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

"Secondly, if you do this, how will your dad react? You messed with Julie today, do you think your dad won't find out?"

Even finding someone to take your classes for you was discovered by your dad's secretary with just one phone call. How long do you think you can hide this? What is his biggest taboo in this life?

It wasn't a woman; it was someone causing him trouble in the business world.

Why do you think he likes your mother? Because in my twenty-odd years, I've never, ever caused him any trouble. And now you, you turn around and nitpick at him. I want to protect you, but I can't.

Ningweier's lips began to tremble. "Then...then I'll stop now."

"You still know how to stop it." Ning Limei leaned back and closed her eyes.

"Tell Minmin and Shanshan to stop. Right now."

Ningweier practically rolled off the sofa. She grabbed her phone, ran into her room, closed the door, and her fingers trembled as she dialed.

"Minmin, let's not do that."

"Huh? You're not doing it anymore?" Li Minmin's voice was a little exaggerated, but she kept it within a range that didn't sound gloating.

"Okay, okay, if you say forget it, then forget it. I haven't called anyone yet, so this will save me trouble."

She paused for a moment, then added a very heartwarming remark.

"But to be honest, Sister Will, you should be careful with your dad. We're not in a rush."

"Shanshan, we're not doing it anymore. Take everything back, and don't leave a trace."

Susan agreed quickly—she didn't even say "ah," just said OK, and repeatedly assured that she would leave no trace.

After hanging up the phone, she complained about it to Li Minmin on WeChat:

"Ningville is really interesting. I even hired someone to make a banner, and she backed down after just one phone call."

"However, we'll still take the money, but we don't need to do anything. This is a good deal. It saves me the trouble of worrying about Gu Zhenxing finding out about us."

Ningville was unaware of these conversations. After finishing the call, she sat down against the door, her heart still pounding, but at least it wasn't in her throat anymore.

She felt she had done the right thing. She pulled back from the brink. It was better late than never.

Several idioms flashed through her mind, but she finally settled on one: "a false alarm."

Nothing would happen at Julie's art exhibition the next day. She took a shower, put on a face mask, and went to bed early.

On the last day of Julie's art exhibition, Ningweier didn't wake up until noon.

She slept soundly the night before, as if nothing had happened.

She was still groggy when the phone screen lit up. She squinted and swiped the screen, then suddenly sat bolt upright as if she'd been electrocuted.

The screen displays a photograph. At the entrance of the art museum where Angelina Jolie's exhibition is being held, a huge red banner hangs from the second-floor terrace, with glaring white lettering—"Angelina Jolie's Shame in the Art World: She Rose to Fame Through Sexual Intervention."

Onlookers were taking pictures with their phones, social media bloggers had arrived at the scene, and reporters' microphones and cameras surrounded the revolving door of the art museum in the live broadcast. Everyone was waiting for Jolie to appear.

Ningville's fingers froze on the top of the screen, his mind bombarded by only one voice.

Didn't we say we'd stop? No. Didn't we agree we wouldn't do it anymore?

Minmin and Shanshan had clearly agreed. Her fingers started trembling, so much so that she could barely hold her phone.

She stumbled out of bed, her bare feet touching the cold floor, desperately trying to form a sentence in her mind:

She has already stopped it; she didn't do it.

But the words on the banner were exactly the same as those Li Minmin and she had discussed. But those two words felt like a joke stuck in her throat.

The art museum where Julie's art exhibition is held is located in the East Cultural New District. The entrance is a transparent three-story glass atrium. A red banner with white characters hanging from the second-floor terrace falls directly above the main entrance, and every word is dazzling in the sunlight.

In the live stream of the self-media blogger, the barrage of comments was flying by. Terms like "rising painter Julie", "climbed to the top by sleeping around" and "art circle collapse" exploded like water droplets poured into a pot of oil.

A black car stopped at the back entrance of the art museum, and Julie got out.

Today she was wearing a light gray linen dress, her hair was casually tied back with an ebony hairpin, and she wore a pair of flat ballet flats.

Her expression was calm, not a forced calm, but the kind of serenity that comes from having truly experienced something.

Reporters swarmed around her, their microphones almost poking her chin.

"Ms. Julie! What's your response to the banner at the door?"

"What is your relationship with Mr. Gu? Was there any behind-the-scenes manipulation in the auction prices of your paintings?"

"An anonymous source has alleged that you deliberately approached Gu Zhenxing. What is your response to this?"

Julie stood on the steps of the back door of the art museum, with a gray-white concrete wall behind her and cameras and microphones in front of her like a dense fence.

She slightly raised her chin, and everyone was waiting for her to say "no comment".

She smiled, not the kind of smile one has to maintain when cornered, but a faint, nonchalant smile.

"This isn't the first time I've encountered something like this." Her voice wasn't loud, but it was steady, and she calmly fed the message into the nearest recording device.

"When I was seventeen, I had my first small art exhibition in Paris. Someone wrote on my invitation, 'She doesn't deserve it.'"

When I rented a studio in the Marais district, some people said that my paintings were done by ghostwriters.

When I first entered an auction house, someone anonymously emailed all the participating institutions, saying that my private life was so chaotic that I was not fit to stand in the art world.

Over the years, I've learned one thing—a remarkable woman, when she achieves worldly success.

The biggest criticism will never come from strangers, but from those of the same sex who cannot tolerate her establishing herself.

The reporters fell silent for a moment. Usually, the response in such situations is a template like "the innocent have nothing to fear" or "hand it over to the lawyers," but she didn't.

She wasn't making a legal statement; she was making a statement that was completely unconventional.

"I choose to stand here not to bow down to those hiding in the shadows. They don't deserve it. I stand here for all the young girls watching this scene—if one day you are also stigmatized, criticized, and smeared in your own fields, don't hide, don't feel ashamed."

The shame should belong to them, not you.

I, Julie, will let time and my work speak for themselves; I will never admit defeat on this kind of issue.

After she finished speaking, she nodded slightly, not giving the reporter any chance to ask further questions, and turned to walk into the back door of the art museum.

The glass door slowly closed behind her, and the hem of her light gray skirt disappeared into the doorway in a flash.

The video was shared on major platforms in less than half an hour, and the comments section was almost unanimously in her favor.

"Still so dignified after being splashed with dirty water." "That's amazing." "She's right, outstanding women are constantly the target of false rumors."

"If someone treated me like that, I would have hidden away and cried. Instead, she comforted others."

Julie's social media account gained hundreds of thousands of followers overnight, with the new attention coming from young girls who had previously paid no attention to art bloggers but were moved by the video.

They lined up and flooded her pinned post with messages like, "Don't be afraid, sister, we're here for you."

Gu Zhenxing saw the video in his study.

Xu Bingjun handed him the phone, and he looked at it from beginning to end while wearing his reading glasses, without saying a word.

Finally, he took off his reading glasses and placed them on the table, leaned back in his chair, remained silent for a long time, and then picked up his phone and called Julie.

The phone rang for a long time, so long that he thought she wouldn't answer, but she finally did.

Her voice was a little hoarse, but she was still gently "feeding".

"Teacher Zhu," Gu Zhenxing's voice held a seriousness he hadn't heard in a long time.

"I will investigate today's events thoroughly. If this was deliberately orchestrated, regardless of which media outlet, blogger, or who is behind it, I will investigate everything. If it was just my child being misbehaving—"

He paused, then his voice turned somber, "I will make her give you an explanation."

In that frozen silence, he suddenly realized that these were the most serious words he had ever said to anyone in his life.

Not to Mingcheng, not to Wang Manyun, but to Julie. He remembered her words—"Don't hide in the dark."