Sylvester went on, "Now that we've made it into the finals, you suddenly say something so ominous in the group. Isn't it obvious? You just want a cut of the prize money."

Zander sent an eyeroll emoji and added, "You didn't even have the ability to form a team and compete yourself. You just randomly joined a group and gave a few half-assed comments. Now, you want a share of the spoils. The nerve!"

Their accusations grew uglier by the second.

I frowned and replied bluntly, "I joined the group because you were asking for help with coursework on the forum. It had nothing to do with the competition, and I never joined for the prize money."

My message had barely gone through when Zander sent a middle-finger sticker.

He wrote, "Still lying, huh? If it wasn't for the money, why would you take the initiative to guide us? Don't tell me you saw some handsome guy in our team photo and your heart started fluttering?"

A female student named Charlotte Unwin jumped in and texted, "The most handsome one on our team is obviously Sylvester, right?"

Sylvester laughed even more brazenly as he wrote, "Oh, Jolene. So you were doing all this for me? Sorry to disappoint you, but I've got high standards. Even if I were blind, I wouldn't be able to compel myself to touch a woman like you."

He posted the only selfie that I had ever shared on my WhatsApp Status into the group chat. Normally, we communicated through the forum group chat. Only Sylvester had my number.

At the beginning, they didn't have any startup funds. I had fronted the five thousand dollars, which Sylvester had received.

Last month, Sylvester's mother, Helen Varney, had been diagnosed with cancer. I had seen him asking for help in the group. Out of kindness, I had asked around to help him secure an appointment with a top specialist and had also covered a significant portion of the medical expenses.

After all, I had been a student too. I knew better than anyone how hard things could be for them.

Later, Sylvester had thanked me in a WhatsApp voice message, saying his mother was undergoing chemotherapy and that the chances of success were very high.

But now, he had completely forgotten everything I had done for him. Instead, he was judging my looks and hurling crude, degrading insults at me.

At that moment, I regretted ever helping him.

I should never have joined this group. They were just a bunch of ungrateful ingrates. None of them was worth the two months I had spent working myself to the bone for them.

"I've said all I need to say. If you insist on using it for the competition, don't regret it later," I texted one final warning.

After sending that message, I realized that Sylvester had removed me from the group.

I didn't think much of it and went back to my own work. When I finally finished, I discovered that Sylvester had made a new post and tagged my student account.

He wrote, "I can't keep quiet about this anymore. I'm posting this as a warning so other students don't get scammed.

"This so-called Jolene Zimmerman claimed she wanted to guide us. After joining our entrepreneurship group, she deliberately stayed vague with her guidance. All the advice and models she gave were plagiarized from other people's work."

"Out of respect for her, we didn't expose her. We relied on our own efforts to fight our way into the finals. Now, she suddenly demanded 20 thousand dollars as 'guidance fees' and insisted on taking 90% of the prize money. She threatened that if we didn't give it to her, she'd make us regret it!"

My entire body went numb in an instant.

In just 40 minutes, the post had already gotten several hundred replies. The comments below were filled with outrage from fellow students.

"She gave you other people's work? Isn't that just plagiarism?"

"People are so vile these days. How dare they ask for 20 thousand dollars in fees for guidance given using plagiarized work? Our school's entrepreneurship competition clearly states that no team is allowed to hire advisors, let alone pay guidance fees."

"She's just a senior. What advisor are you talking about? You calling her that probably makes her feel pretty damn pleased with herself."

Someone asked, "You can't just say all that without proof. I've read her replies on other threads. She really did give a lot of reasonable suggestions."

Zander popped up immediately and retorted, "Of course we have evidence. Screenshots coming right up! Oh, and by the way, Jolene has the hots for Sylvester. After he rejected her, she kept harassing him nonstop. How disgusting."

My head buzzed as I read what they posted.

The ordinary conversations we had shared over the past two months had been maliciously cropped, spliced together, and pasted alongside sinister black captions.

More than a dozen screenshots painted me as a habitual plagiarist, claiming that I had rudely demanded "guidance fees" and a share of the prize money.

They even accused me of saying disgusting, suggestive things to Sylvester. They made it look like I was hinting covertly that I wanted to sleep with him.

What enraged me even more was that even the transfer records had been mirrored and photoshopped. The 5,000 dollars I had once transferred to him had somehow turned into money he had sent me as payment to get me to leave him alone.

I immediately tried to explain myself. But when I clicked "Send", I realized the administrators had restricted my account. Every function was disabled.

Forget replying, I couldn't do anything at all.

Then, I remembered Sylvester mentioning before that one of the admins was his roommate.

My WhatsApp chimed a few times. Sylvester sent me a laughing sticker, followed by a series of texts.

"You saw everything, right? Honestly, when you think about it, this is all your fault."

"Ever since you joined the group, you kept saying this wasn't good enough, and that was too carelessly done. You forced us to refine the financial model over and over. Taylor's timid. You made her cry more than once."

"Zander wanted to make the market growth rate look better, but you insisted that 50% wasn't realistic and forced him to use a conservative 15%. He was so pissed that he smashed his mouse in the dorm."

"You're just a student too. We're just flattering you by regarding you as our senior. But you really started taking yourself way too seriously."

"To be honest, we've been sick of your bossing us around for a long time. If it weren't for you, our project would've been way better."

Before I could reply, every single one of his messages was deleted.

Posting on the forum first had been a preemptive strike to prevent me from reporting them. Now, his retracting everything was just to avoid leaving evidence behind.

I had truly underestimated them. From the very beginning, they had already been planning how to kick me out.

"Sylvester, aren't you afraid something will happen at the finals tomorrow?"

"Are you still trying to scare me?"

That message was quickly withdrawn.

Then, he sent another, "But you did remind me of something. Jolene Zimmerman, you'd better not show up at the finals tomorrow. Otherwise, we'll post all the ultimate material that we've prepared. You're a woman, after all. You wouldn't want your reputation ruined, would you?"

My reputation?

I saved the screen recording on my phone and reread the post they had made. Starting with the team leader, Sylvester, and followed by the other five members, all of them poured out their grievances online.

They said I was a dictator. Then, they said I had borrowed money from several of them. And when they refused to lend it to me, I had lashed out at them.

As if that wasn't enough, they even wanted to destroy my reputation too.

But tomorrow was the finals. As one of the judges, why couldn't I show up at the venue?

…

On the day of the finals, someone shoved me hard and dragged me into a corner the moment I walked into the presentation hall.

"You really have a death wish. We told you not to come, and you still showed up."

The one who pushed me was Zander.

Sylvester stood next to him, dressed in a business suit and looking sharp. He was ready to go onstage.

He looked me up and down from head to toe, then smacked his lips lewdly. "Tsk. You look pretty average in photos, but your figure's not bad. I'll play with you some other time."

He continued, giving me a warning, "You'd better leave now. If you don't, we'll add a little more 'content' to that post."

I looked around at them one by one and realized how completely different they were from the sunny smiles in the group photo. It was a sharp reminder to myself that I couldn't judge people by photos anymore. Otherwise, I'd just keep inviting this kind of trouble.

"Sylvester, we can talk about the post later. But right now, please step aside. The finals are about to begin."

All six of them wore expressions of open contempt. Not a single one moved.

Only Taylor spoke up timidly, her voice barely above a whisper, "But an invitation is required to get into the finals. She's not on our team. How did she get in?"

They finally sensed something was off and turned to glance at the ticket checker in the distance.

The competition was about to start, and I didn't have time to keep tangling with them.

Just as I was about to tell the truth, Sylvester suddenly seemed to realize something. The smile on his face grew even more lecherous.

He jeered, "Don't tell me you slept with one of the judges or some angel investor? Look at that body with the curves in all the right places. It's exactly the type those old men like."

I frowned with displeasure. "Watch your mouth! That's slander. I can call the police for that."

They burst out laughing.

"Then go ahead and call them. We've got evidence anyway." As Zander spoke, he pulled out his phone and handed it to me with his chin raised smugly.

The moment I saw the screen, the blood in my body froze. They had taken that single selfie of mine and used AI to generate dozens of pornographic images.

Every one of them was explicit. The men facing me were all blurred out, but I was completely naked. Even my name was written right beside the images!

"You're insane. This is a serious crime!" I exclaimed.

"What crime? That's your face, right? Jolene is your name, right? Which part of this is fake? How can posting true facts be categorized as a crime?" Zander sneered.

Things were spiraling in a far more dangerous direction. A sense of dread washed over me. I pulled out my phone to call the police, but Zander reacted instantly and snatched it away.

"Give it back to me!"

"If you've got the guts, come take it yourself," he taunted, stuffing it into his pocket triumphantly.

My heart sank.

A few male students passed by and greeted them casually. "Sylvester, isn't your team supposed to have six people? Who's this? Oh… It's that plagiarizing senior! What, did you give in? You're really paying her guidance fees and the prize money?"

Sylvester put on a pained expression. "No way. She pulled some tricks to get herself inside."

The phone screen tilted slightly. With that, the nearby students all gasped and started exclaiming in disgust.

"This is insane! She'd do anything just to win! She even resorted to using her body! How indecent!"

Zander grinned and mocked, "The top prize is 1.5 million dollars. She's got no ability of her own and only knows how to plagiarize. Just sleep with some old geezer once, and she can get that much money. Who cares about decency?"

Charlotte nudged his arm. "Are you sure it was just once?"

They shared a knowing laugh. Even Taylor, who was hiding at the very back, laughed along.

A chill ran down my spine.

There were women among the six of them. But all of them had no qualms about slandering me in such a despicable way just to get a bigger share of the prize money.

People passing by eagerly asked for the photos, looking delighted at the drama.

"I posted it in our college group. It's never been this lively!"

"Which college are you from? We'll be careful when we post. Wouldn't want to mess up your chances of landing a rich guy in your own institution."

I wasn't tall to begin with. Now, more than a dozen people had surrounded me, leaving not even the slightest gap.

Clenching my fists, I let out a cold laugh. "When did I ever say I was a student?"

They froze, clearly confused.

Sylvester waved his hand dismissively. "If you're not a student, then what are you? A campus janitor? That's even worse. A janitor pretending to be a senior and trying to take our prize money, huh? You've got some nerve."

The moment they heard "janitor", the others covered their noses in disgust and scattered.

A guy glanced at his watch.