Chapter 4 — The 'Poor' Girl Who Got Expelled

Hua Nguyen failed to obtain the key, and to make matters worse, the academic advisor openly berated her as a fraud. Her psychological defenses collapsed entirely. She slumped onto the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. I looked at them coldly, pulling out my phone.

"Since the student, Hua Nguyen, just promised in person that she would 'voluntarily withdraw' from the university," I declared, my voice cutting through the tension, "then I demand that the department issue a formal disciplinary notice regarding this incident by the end of the day. If not, I will take the original documents to be forensically examined for handwriting verification immediately. By then, the entire university will know how your department colluded with a student to steal a single-occupancy dormitory room!"

The academic advisor had no choice but to nod repeatedly. Hua Nguyen scrambled out of the meeting room, leaving her suitcase behind, too terrified to even reach for it. The department issued a severe formal warning to her. To avoid the matter escalating to the police and damaging the school's reputation, the administration reluctantly allowed her to keep her student status. However, her reputation among the freshmen was thoroughly ruined.

Near the corner of the corridor, I caught the inner thoughts of Hua Nguyen as she hid in the shadows: *Lin Jianwei, just you wait! Even if I cannot get the materials for my livestream from that room, as long as I obtain the poverty certificate from my family and secure the ten-thousand-yuan national scholarship, I can still buy a new phone and pay for viral trends. I will make sure you and your daughter are disgraced and destroyed online!*

I stood where I was, watching the direction in which she had fled. Ten thousand yuan in scholarship money? Very well. Then I would let her see exactly what it means to court one's own destruction.

The student scholarship selection process began. With limited quotas and fierce competition, Hua Nguyen, now carrying a formal disciplinary record, could never have been chosen through the standard path. Desperate for the money, she decided to make a dangerous move.

On a weekend evening, a post appeared on the school forum titled, "Poor Girl's Kindness Trampled to Death." In the post, Hua Nguyen twisted the truth, spreading rumors that she had merely intended to look after her roommate. She claimed that a wealthy parent, wishing to monopolize a single room, had intentionally broken her own daughter’s wrist to frame her. She included several blurry, surreptitiously filmed videos. In them, Nian Nian sat alone under a tree, staring into space. Hua Nguyen had added filters and melancholic background music, intentionally painting a child with autism as a dangerous lunatic.

"The wealthy can cover the sky with one hand, ignoring even the cries of pain from their own flesh and blood," she wrote. "Yet a poor student like me, who struggles even to afford a meal, is met only with disciplinary action. Is there no justice left in this world?"

At the end of the post, she attached a partially visible poverty certificate with an official seal, alongside pictures of her own hands—red, swollen, and cracked. In a single night, the post garnered over a hundred thousand shares, and the comment section erupted. Manipulated by her narrative, netizens began digging into my personal information and Nian Nian’s background. They bombarded the university's complaint hotline until the lines were paralyzed. Some outside agitators even declared they would come to the dormitory to intercept me.

The newly appointed academic advisor, terrified of the public fallout, called me into the office and hinted, "Madam Lin, the public opinion is overwhelming right now, and the school is under immense pressure. Perhaps... if you offered a donation for her, it might buy some peace? If she removes the post, it could also prevent your daughter from being hurt a second time."

"Paying hush money?" I listened to these spineless words and let out a cold laugh. "She spreads rumors and slanders us, yet you expect me to pay to sustain her? Sir, are you encouraging extortion?"

I pushed the door open and left. Faced with the online violence spreading everywhere, I did not post a rebuttal to prove my innocence. I knew that to deal with a person who has no moral boundaries, the only way is to find ironclad evidence and root them out completely.

I contacted my cousin, who works in business in Hua Nguyen’s hometown. "Cousin, please go to the town and investigate this person. See what the actual financial situation of the Hua family is."

A day later, my cousin sent back several videos and photos. The Hua family were by no means living in poverty; they resided in a three-story house covering two hundred square meters. On the terrace hung a sign reading, "General Agency for Agricultural Supplies of the Hua Family," and parked out front was a brand-new car worth two hundred thousand yuan.

Armed with this, I began collecting evidence within the school to prove she was not destitute. At the school’s recycling collection point, I spent two hundred yuan and rummaged through the trash for an entire afternoon. Finally, I found two shipping labels on high-end product boxes where Hua Nguyen had torn off half the name. By nightfall, I bought a secondary account and infiltrated Hua Nguyen’s fan group. I categorized chat logs and transaction screenshots, saving everything to a USB drive. This was no impoverished student. This was a bottomless fraud driven by greed.

Three days later, due to the pressure of public opinion, the university broke precedent and held a public hearing to review the scholarship applications.