For a moment, Aurora really couldn’t recall what had happened back then.

But in the next instant, she saw young Tessa sneaking around, avoiding the classroom cameras before slipping something into her bag.

The moment she saw it, everything came rushing back.

That time, a classmate had lost her watch. It was a diamond-studded piece, a gift from her father who’d brought it back from overseas. It was very expensive.

The girl had never been one to keep a low profile. As soon as she got the watch, she’d gone around the class showing it off.

Before long, everyone knew it was worth a lot—so much, it could buy loads of snacks. At that age, none of them understood the value of money. They only knew how many treats something could buy.

So, when the teacher later found out how much the watch cost, she looked like the sky had fallen. Aurora still remembered her teacher inwardly complaining, “Why would any parent let their child wear something so valuable to school?” Everyone else was struggling, and here came this one student with a luxury item strapped to her wrist.

That, Aurora now realized, had been her young self’s interpretation of the teacher’s reaction when the watch went missing. Sure enough, a moment later, the girl came back into the classroom and reached for her bag, ready to put on the watch. But her face shifted the second she opened it.

She yanked her bag out from under the desk and dumped all the books onto the table. Her movement was so abrupt, it caught the attention of nearly everyone. Some of her close friends quickly gathered around in concern.

“Emma, what’s wrong?”

“Why are you dumping everything out? Did you lose something?”

“Emma, you don’t look so good. What’s going on?”

At that, Emma’s expression twisted with anger. She looked around at everyone, her voice trembling through sobs. “It’s gone… the watch my dad gave me is gone…”

“What do I do? I just got it today. I really loved it. My dad told me to take good care of it—how could this happen?”

Emma cried hard, her emotions spiraling until she started hiccuping through her tears. No one knew how to comfort her. Even though they all went to a private school, none of them had anything close to a watch that expensive. Their families would never allow them to wear something like that to school because they simply didn’t own anything like it.

Just then, young Aurora returned from the restroom. Watching the scene unfold, present-day Aurora’s expression softened. She truly felt sorry for the girl she used to be.

Little Aurora wiped her damp hands, blinking at the chaos in the classroom, looking utterly confused. She leaned over to her deskmate and whispered, “What happened? Why is Emma crying like that?”

Her deskmate explained everything. “Emma’s watch went missing. No one knows who took it.”

“Everyone’s trying to comfort her. This isn’t just a small thing.”

Little Aurora had no idea that her beloved sister had just set her up.

“That does sound pretty serious,” she murmured, then quietly returned to her seat. Class was about to start, after all.

She wasn’t the talkative type back then, and she had always believed it was better not to get involved in things that didn’t concern her. That principle had guided her way of living ever since.

Someone in the class, thinking quickly, raised their voice and said “Emma, don’t cry. Let’s go tell the teacher.”