Chapter 5
All those years of suffering in the Lane family weren't for nothing.
Sophie'd always been sensitive and starved for love. Whenever she was bullied by Rose or scolded by her family, she never dared to speak up. Instead, she poured her heart out in her diary and secretly snapped photos of the evidence, stashing everything in a locked album on her phone.
When I first transmigrated into the book, all those memories came rushing into my mind along with the original host's. I made a mental note to keep them safe, and now, they're finally coming in handy.
I unlocked my phone and opened the encrypted album. Seeing what was inside made my fists clench in anger.
There was a photo of the empty living room on the original Sophie's 18th birthday. On that day, she had a 39°C fever and lay home all day. The family took Rose to Wonderland Park and didn't even call.
There was also a screenshot of the chat where Rose stole the only necklace left by the original host's mom, flaunted it outside, and when the original Sophie asked for it back, her three brothers scolded her for being stingy. "It's just a necklace. So what if Rose likes it? Can't you just let your sister have it?" The chat screenshot was right there as evidence.
And then there was the audio recording the original Sophie secretly took of Rose bragging to her friends about how she deliberately messed up the original Sophie's college application, making sure she didn't get into her dream school, then turning around and telling the Lane family it was all her fault for not working hard enough. That recording was just as nasty as the one I'd released yesterday.
Every single piece was hard evidence.
The more I scrolled, the angrier I got. My fingers moved fast as I sorted all the photos, audio clips, and diary screenshots, wrote a simple caption, and anonymously posted everything on Twitter, local forums, and TikTok.
The caption was plain and direct. No drama, just the truth:
[The real heiress of the Lane Group was switched at birth. After she was finally brought home, her whole family sided with the fake heiress. She was framed, insulted, and mistreated, until she was forced to leave. Photos and audio attached. No fiction, just facts.]
At the end, I added three hashtags: #Lane Family Fake Heiress Exposed #Real Heiress Forced Out By Family Bias #Money Over Romance
After I posted everything, my phone buzzed with the delivery call. I headed downstairs to grab my bubble tea and fried chicken, then curled up on the couch, chowing down while scrolling through my feed.
At first, only a few comments trickled in.
[Whoa, this is insane. The Lane family? You mean the Lane Group that's publicly traded?]
[The drama from this fake heiress is practically spilling out of the screen. Is the whole family blind or what?]
[Poor real heiress. If it were me, I'd run too. Who'd wanna stick around in a dumpster fire like that?]
But in less than half an hour, the post totally exploded.
Some local influencer must've picked it up, and with the perfect hashtags and all that explosive evidence, photos, audio, everything, the shares and comments skyrocketed.
#Lane Family Fake Heiress Exposed# shot straight to the top of the local trending charts, and even started trending nationwide.
The comments section totally blew up.
"Whoa, after hearing that audio, I'm honestly stunned. The fake heiress's scheming is next level."
"Are the Lanes seriously messed up? Their real sister gets bullied like this, and they're still defending some outsider?"
"That birthday fever part legit made me tear up. It's just heartbreaking. With a family this biased, I'd bounce too."
"Am I the only one who caught this? There was already talk yesterday about the Lane heiress reporting she was set up. So this is what went down?"
"Boycott the Lane Group's products! With a family this morally bankrupt, how could their company possibly be any better?"
The netizens' rage was now blazing right at the Lane Group.
I pulled up my finance app and just cracked up.
The Lane Group's stock had already tanked 5% within the first hour of trading, evaporating almost 300 million in market value.
Hell yeah, that was satisfying. So damn satisfying.
This is what you get for threatening me.
I was happily munching on my fried chicken when my phone just went nuts, buzzing nonstop with call after call.
First up was a call from an unknown number. It was James. I swiped to answer, put him on speaker, and kept chomping away.
His voice exploded through the phone. "Sophie, have you lost your mind? Did you post all that stuff online?!" He sounded so furious, I thought my phone might actually break.
I chewed slowly. “It was me. What's wrong? You can do it, but I can't talk?”
"Take it down, now! Do you even realize how much the Lane Group's stock has tanked because of you? You're about to wreck the whole company!"
"Oh? It dropped? Not my problem."
"Sophie, if you don't delete it, I'll freeze your bank account and blacklist you from every industry in Riverdale!"
I laughed. “Are you ignorant of the law? This isn't your personal kingdom.”
With that, I hung up and blocked his number.
As soon as I blocked him, my phone started blowing up again. This time it was Henry, then Richard. The whole Lane family was calling.
I didn't answer a single one. I just blocked them all and set my WhatsApp to block strangers. Suddenly, the world was quiet again.
Meanwhile, my TikTok account was going absolutely viral.
The video I'd casually posted yesterday. A quick shot of my little rental place with the caption, "Left the biased Lane family, got my own apartment, making money is the real deal, no more letting romance mess with my head, starting with me" It had barely any views at first. But thanks to the trending topic, it suddenly blew past ten million views, racked up over a million likes, and my follower count was shooting up like crazy.
In less than two hours, I gained 100,000 new followers.
My inbox was exploding. Tons of messages from people sending support, plus several brands sliding in to ask if I wanted to do sponsorships. The first ad offer came in at a cool 5000 bucks.
I looked at my inbox, and my eyes lit up.
Fam, my first pot of gold just landed!
The Lane family froze my bank account? LOL, please. I'll make ten, a hundred times more than their pocket change in no time, all on my own.
I was busy hashing out the collab details with a brand rep, and since my curtains weren't all the way shut, I happened to glance down outside.
Right under the streetlight by the apartment entrance, a familiar black Maybach was parked. The headlights were off, but the car still caught my eye.
There was a tall guy leaning against it, cigarette between his fingers, the ember flickering in the darkness.
It was Leonard.