Five days later, Cleo returned with Amelia.

As soon as they stepped into the house, Cecil's eyes were immediately blinded by the dazzling necklace around Amelia’s neck.

She snuck a glance at it before looking away.

Her hunch was right; the necklace was meant for Amelia.

In that case, what was it that Cleo was trying to say last time before his sentence got cut off?

Whenever Cleo was around, Amelia had always been very warm and friendly with Cecil. This time, she went right up to Cecil and took her hand.

“Cecil, you must have been so bored at home these last few days! Look, I bought a bunch of things. Come and see if there is anything that you like!"

With that, she took off her coat and dragged over a large box.

Cecil shook her head a few times to refuse the offer.

Amelia reacted by casting a strange look at her.

“Come on, don’t be shy! Just think of it as a gift from your future aunt, alright?” Amelia said in a tone that was hard to read.

The sheer mention of the word ‘aunt’ made Cecil look up subconsciously.

She immediately felt something jolt inside her when she caught a glimpse of the red marks on Amelia’s neck.

Amelia had sent a lot of pictures, and one of them was a shot of the bed inside the hotel room.

At the time, Cecil could not figure out why Amelia had sent that particular picture.

It was easy to form the connection now that she had spotted the marks Cleo had left on her.

Cecil kept her head down and stayed silent.

While they were unpacking, Amelia began to talk about the banquet that was happening tonight.

“Cleo, let's bring Cecil with us to Miss Maya’s twenty-first birthday banquet! Those two are around the same age and should get along very well.”

Cecil did a double take upon hearing the mention of a banquet.

Ever since her parents passed away and she moved into the Emerson house, Cleo had never brought her to attend any parties with him.

She did not think much of it, but she was aware that there were some people making comments about her being a parasite.

Just like every other time, Cleo shook his head and dismissed the suggestion entirely.

Amelia wrapped herself around his arm and tried to persuade him in a sultry voice.

She claimed it would be boring without Cecil around.

With that, Cleo gave in and agreed to the suggestion, mainly out of affection for Amelia.

Upon observing the display of intimacy between the couple, Cecil kept her head down to hide a faint smile forming on her lips.

Amelia was truly one of a kind for Cleo to willingly set aside his principles for her.

It looked like he was very fond of Amelia.

That was all Cecil needed to know.

She had the strength to leave Cleo, knowing that he could find happiness, even if Cecil was not the one to give him that happiness.

It was a very lively banquet with many people interacting in quick succession with one another.

Cecil stood by herself in the corner and watched as Cleo drank to countless toasts for Amelia.

Meanwhile, Cecil quietly sipped from a glass of fruit juice.

At one point, several chattering girls passed by and accidentally spilled a drink on her.

They were very apologetic, and Cecil was, in turn, very gracious.

She did not seem very bothered and proceeded to head to the washroom to clean herself.

Before excusing herself to the washroom, she handed her bag and phone to Cleo.

When she returned ten minutes later, Cleo regarded her with a frown and spoke in a tone that was hard to place.

“Your aunt, Dianne, just called and asked me if you were available to talk. She says she’ll call again later when I told her you’re busy.”

Cecil tensed up at the mention of Dianne.

She managed to relax when she realized Dianne had not mentioned anything about her going abroad to live with her.

Cleo was very perceptive and noticed the subtle change in her demeanor. He could not stop himself from probing.

“When did you get in touch with Dianne?”

“About two weeks ago. She just asked me to send some old pictures of my grandparents.”

The lie she made up on the spot seemed to put Cleo at ease.

He no longer suspected her of anything and proceeded to turn around to help Amelia fix her hair.

After Cecil retrieved her phone and handbag, she turned around and prepared to head back to her corner.

It all happened very quickly.

Someone had accidentally knocked over a nearby tower of champagne glasses, which came crashing down in Cecil and Amelia’s general direction.

“Careful!”

Cleo was the closest to them.

He instinctively reached for Amelia and pulled her into his arms in one swift movement.

Bang!

The champagne tower collapsed and produced a thunderous crash. Cecil barely had time to react and was thrown to the floor.

There were broken shards of glass everywhere, and she had landed on top of them.

There was blood everywhere, and her white gown had turned red.

It was a horrifying sight to behold.

Everyone present at the venue was equally shocked by the sudden commotion. Even though Amelia was unscathed, she burst out crying from shock.

Cleo looked at Cecil, who was covered in blood and lying on the ground, then at Amelia, who was crying in his arms.

He hesitated for a moment before turning to his bodyguard.

“Take her to the hospital.”

After issuing the order, he carried Amelia away from the venue.

When the pair disappeared, Cecil stumbled to her feet.

She could feel countless pairs of sympathizing glances cast in her direction.

It was an hour past midnight by the time she got home after dressing her wounds.

The doctor had given her more than a dozen stitches and made arrangements for her to be hospitalized. However, she refused hospitalization and insisted on going home after collecting the medicine.

Cleo was not home yet.

She switched off the lights and lay on the bed, then she stared transfixed at the ceiling, drowned in darkness.

Her body was screaming all over from the searing pain, it was difficult to sleep at all.

By the time she finally felt like she was about to drift off to sleep, it was three o’clock.

Suddenly, the lights in the living room came on.

Cleo staggered into the house and went upstairs.

He reeked of alcohol.

Instead of heading to his bedroom, he went to the last room down the corridor that used to be his former study.

He gently opened the door.

Cecil tended to move around when she slept, and when she turned to the side, she was irritated by the contact against her countless cuts and coughed faintly in her sleep.

Cleo was alerted by the faint voice she made.

He followed the direction of the voice and went to the head of the bed. In one swift gesture, he pulled the figure in bed into his arms.

With one hand, he pulled apart her shirt so he could press his hand against the soft of her waist.

With the other hand, he cupped her chin and proceeded to kiss her.

Cecil was only half asleep and was quickly awakened by the sudden movement.

She immediately caught a hint of the familiar scent of cologne, which helped her identify the person.

Uncle Cleo?

Why had he suddenly charged into the room to kiss her?

She was thrown off, and before she could even react, she heard Cleo’s raspy voice followed by the heat of his breath beating on her skin.

“Amelia…”

She felt herself tense up at the name.

The accompanying smell of alcohol helped her decipher the situation swiftly.

Cleo was drunk and mistakenly thought she was Amelia.

While she was still processing it, she felt Cleo’s hand creeping downward.

She started to panic upon realizing what was happening. She reached for his hands to stop him while attempting to push him away.

“Uncle Cleo, you’ve got the wrong person! It’s Cecil!” she cried out frantically.

Cleo must have been too drunk to understand what she was saying. If anything, he seemed to have become more excited by her actions.

He kissed Cecil with increased intensity and started sucking on her lips.

Cecil felt like she was going to be suffocated.

She felt so frustrated that she started to cry. Her tears wet her bandages and sent a prickly feeling running through her body.

“Uncle Cleo, you’re hurting me, my cuts are…”

She was not sure if it was the alcohol or her cries that finally reached him.

Cleo suddenly stiffened, and then he let go of her arms shortly after that.

Cecil quickly turned to the side and scrambled out of the room, not even bothering to put on her shoes in the process.

She ran downstairs to the living room and wrapped herself in a blanket until the morning when she finally fell asleep.

The next afternoon, when she opened her eyes, she saw Cleo sitting in front of her with an expression she had never seen on him before.

She suddenly recalled the scenes from last night.

She was so scared that she shrank into the corner of the couch.

A cold look flashed across Cleo’s eyes when he observed the way she reacted.

“Was it you who tried to get me into your room last night?”

Cecil was thrown off by the question. Just as she was about to explain, Cleo cut her off with a sharp frown.

“Don’t you ever hatch that kind of idea about me again. I’ll kick you out.”

Cecil studied the determined look on his face.

She was about to tell him that he was drunk but decided against it.

Seeing as she had tried to sneak a kiss on him in the past, she realized that Cleo was not going to believe her no matter what she said.

With that, she gave up on explaining entirely and opted to stay quiet.

She looked down and stared at their shadows cast on the floor.

When she noticed the figure of the shadow in front of her reaching a hand across, she instinctively looked up.

Cleo's hand hovered on top of her head, and it looked as if he was going to pat her head.

Cecil froze. Her eyes were filled with disbelief.

When she was a child, there were times when she would miss her parents so much that she would cry to the point of hysteria and then lose her breath.

During those desolate moments, it was always Cleo gently patting her head and comforting her that saved her.

It was a symbolic gesture between both of them for a long time.

When she turned seventeen, there was no longer any physical interaction between the two.

The thought of Cleo doing it made her so nervous that her heart could stop.

A second later, Cleo angled his hand further upward and grabbed a bottle of red wine from the cabinet behind her.

She had been reading too much into it.

All she could do was laugh at her naivety.

Because she was in a hurry for cash, she had listed all of her belongings as well as the family house at a price lower than the market average.

It did not take long for everything to be sold.

She managed to put together roughly nine million dollars, but it was still several hundred thousand dollars short of the amount she planned to return to Cleo.

Since she was going to Vinland very soon, she did not have much time left to put together the money to make up the difference.

She was a painter and was relatively new to the scene, but despite that, she managed to win many awards over the last few years and was relatively well-known in the industry.

With that in mind, she decided to hold an exhibition to sell her paintings.

It was going to be too hard to coordinate all of that by herself, so she decided to go to Cleo for help.

Amelia happened to be nearby when she approached Cleo.

She seemed surprised at the mention of an exhibition and approached them with a radiant smile.

“What a coincidence! I'm also preparing for an exhibition! Why don't we host a joint exhibit?”

Cecil turned to Cleo, and seeing that he did not object to it, she agreed as well.

Five days later, the joint exhibitions of Cecil and Amelia were held at the art museum.

Amelia had been painting for more than a decade, but it was her first large-scale exhibition.

Because of that, Cleo was particularly invested in the exhibition.

He designated that Amelia’s work be displayed in the main gallery and even ordered the gallery to be renovated.

Significant effort was put into advertising as well.

On the opening day of the exhibition, many celebrities and intellectuals showed up, so much so that the museum recorded a new high in the number of daily visitors.

Meanwhile, things were not as ideal in the other wing of the gallery.

There were nearly a hundred paintings, all cramped into a room barely ten square meters large.

It was so confined that the visitors barely had any space to walk. Auctioning any art on display was completely out of the question.

Cecil stood by the entrance and stared at the commotion in the main gallery with a dejected look in her eyes.

A few of her friends who showed up were just about to console her when they heard a sharp shriek in the room.

“Cecil, there’s a situation!”

There was a wave of controversy on the internet about a certain artist plagiarizing from another fellow artist.

The artists in question were none other than Cecil and Amelia, who were holding an exhibition on the same day.

Cecil looked at the illustrations made by the netizens on her phone.

It was a side-by-side comparison of two similar paintings, along with a reference that indicated how similar the composition and color chart were.

It did not take long before the topic “Cecil Miller is an imposter” became viral and went to the top of the trending topic list.

Her friends crowded around her, all of them as anxious as the other.

“How could they accuse you of plagiarism? The shirt you are wearing in this picture is from our high school! Are they stupid?”

“That's right! This is Cecil herself! We can vouch for you!“

“Amelia is the one who is plagiarizing your art. How shameless!”

Cecil stayed calm and rational the entire time.

The first thing she did was rush back home to collect her draft so she could prove her innocence.

She felt her head spinning the entire time.

She recalled a specific episode from when she was just starting as an artist.

At the time, she was only eighteen years old.

It was shortly after Cleo stopped picking her up after school.

She was rushing back home with her exam report that showed she had managed to come in first place in her grade.

She wanted to show it to Cleo to impress him.

When she got home, the room was very quiet.

She found Cleo slumped against his table and asleep. She gently tiptoed to his side.

The auburn glow of the setting sun beat against his profile.

It made him seem more mesmerizing than ever, as if he had come straight out of a fairy tale.

She decided that she must be the one destined for him in this fairy tale.

She covered his face with the exam report and planted a gentle kiss.

Cleo was awakened by the rustling movement and ended up telling her off again.

However, she did not take his lecture to heart and ended up setting the scene to her canvas.

She kept the painting for many years after that.

Now that she had finally moved on from him and needed quick cash, she put that painting into the exhibition as well.

Little did she know, it was to her ruin.

When she got home, she searched everywhere in the house but could not find the initial draft, no matter how hard she looked.

She began to panic and tried to jog her memory to figure out where she had put it.

Around this point, she received a text on her phone.

It was a friend who sent her a link and urgently beckoned her to open it.

She tapped the link and immediately saw Amelia’s face show up on the screen.

Her heart dropped when she saw the panel behind Amelia with the words “Press Conference” printed on it.

It was a live broadcast, and Amelia seemed especially stoic.

She was in the middle of giving a statement addressing the plagiarism accusations, then she began to describe the process of her drawing.

Shortly after that, she revealed the first draft she brought with her and showed it to the reporters and cameras.

“I am very close with Cecil, the up-and-coming artist who has been named in the plagiarism controversy.

“She is a young, innocent girl, and I believe she did not do it to be malicious; it was just a mistake, and I don’t blame her for what happened.”

With the press conference, the collective opinion of the public immediately shifted toward Amelia’s side.

A whole wave of people flocked toward Cecil’s account and began to hurl insults and criticism at her, the comments numbered up to a hundred thousand.

Meanwhile, yet another topic went trending:

[The Daughter of the Wrights Just Kissed the President of Emerson Corporation! A Love Story is Budding Before Our Eyes!]

There was a video that followed the article.

In the video, Cleo was seen arriving at the press conference in a sports car. As soon as he showed up, Amelia ran up to him and threw herself into his arms with a beaming smile the entire time.

The couple shared an intimate embrace before burrowing into the car.

Moments before the privacy screen came up, the camera managed to catch a glimpse of them sharing a passionate kiss.

Their relationship had become public even when they had just started dating and drew in a large following over time.

A lot of the fanbase poured in with a string of comments.

[So sweet! Oh my God, I can’t!]

[No! Don’t put up the privacy screen! I want to see all of it!]

[I heard Cleo is Cecil's uncle. If you consider Cecil and Amelia’s recent plagiarism scandal and the fact that Cleo vouched for Amelia right away, doesn’t that basically prove that Cecil is guilty as charged?]

Cecil swiped out of the comment section with a numb expression.

Then, she watched as countless notifications poured in, all of them from people criticizing her.

They accused her of malpractice, lacking basic decency, and for being a poor artist in general.

Some of them dialed it up further and began to insult her family as well.

They began to make comments about her lack of manners and that she was poor.

At one point, her finger hovered stiffly over the display, and she began to tremble from head to toe.

A single tear fell on the screen of her phone.

The text on the display was blurred, but that was not enough to censor the pain inside her.

She called Cleo.