False or Real Affection? Pt. 4

Though her chances to use it were wasted in her past life, the same could not be said for this one. She had a vague memory of everything she read, unfortunately she did not have eidetic memory so it was not without holes. However, she did have an ability to pick things up quickly so a quick glance over the books again would jog her memory enough to fill in the gaps.

There was such a wide variety so all the topics did not seem helpful for right now but her mindset reading them was different last time. At that stage, she was looking to help her brother and family, that meant anything she thought they knew she would pay less attention to. Yet now, she was looking for herself which meant the books content would be studied differently. Mentally she made it a point for her to sneak into the library tonight and grab some books to read. It was the best time for her to do it and no one would really notice her unnatural actions, if caught she could just pass it off as not being able to sleep. With that settled, her mind eased slightly with having another plan set up.

Leaving those aside, she went back to her brother and his motivation. Her being reclusive was the perfect set up to have her disappear completely from the upper society. It was a couple months in time but years in high society with the amount of events and galas she had missed. Not including the fact that she had remained silent on her social media as well, her lack of interaction became the normal to expect from her. If she had been extremely active and had then suddenly died off, that would at least tip people off that something wasn't right.

Though her brother could easily gain access to her channels and make it seem like she was still posting. She had no clue how he had dealt with the aftermaths of her death. Her being out of spot light made the removal easier, she had no position no worth for people to care about her being gone. So they could have easily settled it as a freak accident, a wire coming loose and she died 'tragically' in the fire. If her parents were not in it, they would cry, a small funeral was held and her name would fade away with time. That was the easiest way to go about this.

If her parents were a part of the plan, then they could have gone the longer route with faking her still being alive till she faded away from conversations entirely. No one would know that she died and if questioned, they could pass her off as a recluse. Or just come up with another excuse like her moving abroad so it would make sense that she was not present. The only thing she was confident they would not do, is ruin her reputation further.

In upper society, reputation was everything and is what set you apart of other people. It could land you a contract or make you the social pariah no one wanted to spend money on. Thus, her parents could not afford to ruin her image after her society exit. An incident with her would be a direct reflection of the Shu family name and would cause them to lower their heads. So answers like "she ran away with her lover" or "she became brain dead" etcetera would not happen.

It was annoying that she was so sure of this because of the reputation issue and not from their love for her. Regardless of any option, the motivation was important but she died in all of them. If her brother was involved in this one, there was probably many more that he was involved in too. When she went home today, she would also have to write down the follow up events so she had a record, maybe it would remind her of something important.

Turning her attention away from her brother for a second, she started thinking about the other involved party. If the designer was a pawn, that also goes for Chen Chunhua, the woman was a green tea b*tch but who was to say she was also not used?

The woman had an eye on her for a while but she was unaware of the depth of the hatred she held for her. With someone who was already raring to go against her, it would not take much convincing for her to do something. Especially, if the information was handed to her on a golden platter.

The designer must have sent an image to the other, or purposely designed a copy of the one Chunhua had ordered. When she had first seen the dress, she did not love it but due to the rush she did not care much about it. The design of it seemed good enough for the gala and fit perfectly, so she just settled the bill and took it home. It wasn't until she walked into the ball that she realized such an incident had happened. Since the other had arrived first and the way she spun her words, it was easy to make it look like she was the copier.

She doubted that this woman had thought of this plan herself, petty tricks at the gala were more her style. Something of this scale had to be premeditated by someone smarter. Being her brother's pawn could have been him solely working with the designer and copying the dress without informing Chunhua. Or it meant that she was informed ahead of time and made preparations to humiliate her knowing that she would come in the same outfit.

Regardless of her brother's involvement, it did not mean that she would forget about her revenge against her, she was still equally as guilty. If she was a pawn, then she was just a stupid guilty party that was used without knowing. She doubted her brother would directly enlist her for help since that would lead a trail back to him. How he indirectly did it was what she had to discover, at this point she was eighty percent convinced that he had an involvement.