“Pft, we knew you were daft, but since when did you go deaf?” One of the socialites, Ye Luoluo, replied while flipping her hair over her shoulders.

Xia Mengxi recognized the woman as the rising model that used to bootlick her until her shoes were squeaky clean. Her lips curled when she realized the obvious betrayal. “Have you lost your mind—”

“No, but you’re about to right now,” Ye Luoluo retorted with a confident smirk on her naturally-contoured face. A friend standing beside her tossed the magazines onto the floor, as one would toss a coin towards a homeless person.

Xia Mengxi struggled to keep her calm at the blatant disrespect. She felt Deja Vu course through her veins for she had witnessed this embarrassing scene before. Except, she wasn’t the victim but the bully. Her face remained neutral and even a bit pitiful with her eyebrows wounding together in disappointment. Her eyes were the window to her soul and they danced with resentment.

Xia Mengxi spoke in a softer voice, dripping with fake kindness. “Luoluo, it’s not polite to have your friends litter in this mall. It’s going to make the janitor’s life a lot harder.”

“Hah, the only litter I see here is you.”

“By janitor, do you mean your mother? I heard she pulled quite a good amount of strings to land you as a secretary. Oh right, did you forget about that? You’re an employee who crawled into the bed of her employer to become a low-grade mistress.”

Xia Mengxi’s face turned paler than the pearls adorning her wrist. She hadn’t been directly insulted like this for a long time. The last time was when Zheng Hechong caught sight of her in Zheng Tianyi’s house. He had stared at her as if she was worse than the scum underneath his shoes.

“And stop pretending to be a white-lotus. That act is SO last year,” Ye Luoluo scoffed. Her high-pitched voice was beginning to receive chimes of agreements from the large crowd that had gathered.

Without a heavy layer of make-up, Xia Mengxi’s face burned bright red with embarrassment. She handled positive attention quite well. Because of Zheng Tianyi’s support, she rarely faced negative comments like this from the social circle. Naturally, her armor and weapons weren’t sharpened for the brutal battlefield.

Baffled by their words, her heart skyrocketed at the realization that the crowd was filled with familiar faces. She had always been good to these people. ‘They’re going to support me for sure,’ she gloated to herself.

“Luoluo, let’s be civilized about this.” Xia Mengxi turned to her friends, waiting for them to respond. Her heart leaped when she saw a few exchange understanding smiles her way. Like them, she naturally smiled.

“Luoluo, Mengxi is right.” One of Xia Mengxi’s friends, Hua Bihui spoke up. Her eyes mockingly glanced at Xia Mengxi before she added on, “You shouldn’t stoop down to her level.”

Xia Mengxi’s smile dropped. “Hua Bihui, what are you saying—”

“I mean, look at her. She’s dressed in wealth, not class. She thinks buying expensive clothes will buy her grace.” Hua Bihui sneered, her words humiliating Xia Mengxi even further. On top of it, everyone here was a mixture of her friends and strangers.

“How dare you—” Xia Mengxi couldn’t finish her words when a swarm of reporters stormed through the front entrance. Their entry was unexpected and before the security guards were able to prevent them from entering, questions were thrust into her face.

She thought her friends would push them all away, instead, they parted like the sea to allow the reporters through. Slapped with their betrayal, she was stunned quiet. The rapid assault of questions left and right turned her mind into a blank canvas.

“Miss Xia, is it true you slept with your fiance’s closest relatives?”

“People are saying your mother was the reason why you could become a secretary.”

“Are you truly a Cinderella, or are you a witch in disguise?”

Xia Mengxi’s mind swirled from their brutal questions. Her bodyguards stepped forward, pushing the people back. She was grateful for their protection. The last thing she needed was people physically touching her.

The questions were intense and she slowly felt like she was losing her sanity to them. Her lips become chapped and her throat felt parched. She was furious with their questions. One could tell by her scalding glare that she was highly provoked by their questions — which was exactly what the reporters wanted.

“Who is your newest big-thigh?”

This question was the tipping point for her. “This is audacious! Do you people have no morals? How can you assault me with these questions? Don’t you have anything better to do with your lives?”

Everyone quieted down at her shrilling words.

“Honestly, reporters and paparazzi are low-lives who earn money from ruining people’s reputations. You shouldn’t paint yourself like this.” Xia Mengxi continued her rant, thinking she was safe under the influence of her bodyguards.

A few of the reporters and paparazzi were angered by her words. Their questions became even more scandalous and targeting.

“Apparently your father didn’t abandon you with zero contact. Rumors are accusing you of influencing his suicide. We heard he borrowed from loan sharks because you needed the money. Is that true?”

“Is it true you influenced Zheng Tianyi’s decision when he wanted to humiliate Zhao Lifei? Some of your servants are saying you like to pillow talk [1] him.”

“Everyone is saying you should be jailed for your crimes against an innocent woman! The only reason Zhao Lifei retaliated against you was that you were sleeping with her fiance while he was still legally bound to her! Is that true? Can you comment on this?”

Xia Mengxi stood frozen in the mall. Harassing questions were tossed at her left and right, then something else came for her. It was bright red and splattered all over her dress. Gasps could be heard before laughter erupted in the crowd. A low whistle was heard and all of a sudden, her bodyguards dispersed. Cameras flashed on her face while something else was thrown at her, this time, landing perfectly on her head — a rotten egg. She shrieked when she felt the egg white running down her hair, tainting it with a pungent smell. Without bodyguards blocking her from everyone’s view, her reaction and humiliation were left wide open for people to see.

The furious reporters continued their harassment, this time, literally circling around her and preventing her from escaping.

“Miss Xia, the public is accusing you of being a slut and a mistress. How are you going to respond to these accusations? Are you truly fooling around with other men when Zheng Tianyi is nowhere to be found?”

“Why did you cheat on your fiance? Is it because he was not giving you enough money?”

“How do you feel about this recent scandal?”

“Are you going to apologize to Zhao Lifei? Online comments are calling you a hateful homewrecker who should be stripped naked on the streets. What do you want to say to these people?”

Xia Mengxi’s head was spinning. The continuous flash from the cameras capturing the worst moment of her life was beginning to blind her. She couldn’t see that well, much less have the consciousness to respond to their comments. Under everyone’s pressure, she couldn’t think of a response. Her head spun left to right, a loud, “OW!” left her mouth when something else was tossed at her shoulder blades. She glanced down and to her horror, it was a thick stack of pictures showing her adulterous affair with Zheng Murong. Obviously, his face was blurred out with black bars across his eyes. Before she could pick it up, the reporters snatched it.

“Is this the man you were sleeping with while you were in a relationship with Zheng Tianyi?”

“Were you pillow talking both men?”

Questions slapped her face left and right. Her knees trembled and wobbled like her quivering lips. A sob left her mouth, then another, but all of it was drowned by a harsh thud at her head. An open water bottle had landed on her from the second floor.

“Cheating wh*ore!”

“Why don’t you crawl back to the disgusting gutters you came from!”

“Shameless b*tch!”

It didn’t take long for the entire mall to enter into different stages of chaos. This was only the beginning of Xia Mengxi’s downfall.