The 3rd Year with Marcus Morvan

3

AuraCorp's anniversary celebration was a week-long event.

Aside from the minor incident of Marcus Morvan's sudden appearance, the first day went smoothly.

The remaining days were just filled with promotional lectures and discount sales.

Although public attention wasn't as high as on the first day, we still couldn't let our guard down.

If online public opinion wasn't managed well, it could damage AuraCorp's reputation and directly impact its future growth.

As it turned out, that very night, someone leaked a video from backstage at the anniversary celebration showing Marcus Morvan being restrained by security and pinned down and beaten by Julian Rhodes.

The selectively-edited video, combined with photos of Marcus Morvan in the hospital, immediately sent the public scrambling onto their moral high ground.

Tabloid accounts churned out posts hundreds of words long condemning AuraCorp.

"Do some of these big corporations really think they can get away with anything? Just brazenly beating people up backstage?"

The story latched onto the buzz from AuraCorp's anniversary. Adding to that, Marcus Morvan's girlfriend, Faye Hale, was an online influencer with millions of followers.

The whole topic shot to the top of the trending charts in an instant.

"Whoa, isn't the guy who got beaten up the recently popular President Morvan? Faye Hale's boyfriend?"

"I know, I know! I heard President Morvan wanted to do business with AuraCorp but touched a nerve with the big corporation. I guess his path is going to be a lot harder now."

"Oh my god, President Morvan's injuries look horrifying. How much do they have to hate him to do that?"

"I have a friend who works at President Morvan's company. I heard he's a really nice guy. Why do bad things happen to good people?"

Some of the more irrational fans flooded the comments of AuraCorp's official social media page, demanding an explanation.

Some even spammed the social media accounts of the celebrities who attended the anniversary celebration.

Rumors flew thick and fast. The PR department worked through the night to manage the public narrative, and while they were at it, they released the full video of the day's events.

Even without audio, it was clear who had started the trouble.

The online furor gradually subsided. Meanwhile, the Tech department was investigating the source of the video leak.

But as it turned out, the other party exposed themselves first.

Seeing the hype die down, Faye Hale posted a video along with a lengthy, emotional essay.

She claimed I had abandoned Marcus Morvan and that he had searched for me like a madman after I left.

Then, she wrote about how her own unwavering companionship and support finally allowed Marcus Morvan to gradually emerge from the shadows.

But then I suddenly reappeared and, to her surprise, had not only hooked up with a powerful man but had also arranged to have Marcus beaten.

The buzz exploded once again.

And once again, a mob of netizens rushed to AuraCorp's page to curse me out.

This time, I didn't even have to make a move before someone else exposed the truth.

The post began with a single sentence in a large font.

"She descended from the clouds to build a high ladder, and you climbed it only to push her into the mire."

My hand paused. I kept scrolling.

The post contained photos of hundreds, even thousands, of transaction records, dated from five years ago to three years ago.

All of them were transfers I had made under various pretexts, either directly to Marcus Morvan or to his company's account.

There were also a few screenshots of chat logs.

They were records of me begging several major figures in tech to go work for Marcus Morvan's company.

I had offered salaries two to three times the market rate to persuade them to join a tiny, newly-established company.

And a video clip.

It was from the press conference two years ago, on the day Marcus Morvan's company successfully launched its project and went public.

It was a project Marcus Morvan and I had spent half a year preparing for, but he called Faye Hale up on stage to thank her, without mentioning me at all.

He allowed Faye Hale to lift her chin at me smugly and have the staff show me out.

The final image was a summary of all the little tricks Faye Hale had pulled behind the scenes to create friction between me and Marcus Morvan after the company was founded.

Faye Hale was, in fact, the richest man's daughter from a certain city.

For the past two years, she had been using the internet to build a social media presence, all under the banner of being a pampered young heiress.

Her daily content consisted of either showing off her lavish lifestyle or showing off Marcus Morvan, all while implying she had helped him a great deal and had always been by his side.

Her followers constantly encouraged her to confess her feelings to him, but Faye Hale would always act nonchalantly, pretending not to care.

"I'll wait a bit longer. I'm waiting for him to reach the peak, so we can stand shoulder to shoulder."

All her followers shipped the two of them.

But now, all those lies had come crashing down in a single night.

I scrolled to the very bottom of the post, carefully reading through all the summaries and the final, bolded sentence.

"BUT SHE WAS BORN IN THE CLOUDS, WHICH MEANS YOU'RE GETTING STOMPED UNDER MY BOOT!!!"

My first thought was—Julian Rhodes.

Sure enough, Julian Rhodes seemed determined to turn the entire social media sphere upside down that night.

Before netizens had a chance to digest all of that, he posted a photo of me.

'He's such a schemer.'

The photo seemed to be of me reaching toward the camera, but you could clearly see matching rings on my hand and on the hand holding mine.

The exquisite, beautiful diamond on it is my favorite.

Julian Rhodes added a faux-innocent caption to go with it.

"Oops, my phone must be broken. How'd it post this gorgeous picture of my wife all by itself?"

He even attached a popular facepalm meme.