Chapter 54

The principal frowned right away, looked at Kieran a bit nervously, then lowered his voice and gave Alarieka a warning look: "Who told you to let it out? If you made this decision on your own and something went wrong, you’d have to take responsibility!"

Alarieka blinked innocently, her eyes clear: "Did I do something wrong?" She lowered her eyes and looked upset. "I’d been preparing 'Aspiration' for a long time to play at the school anniversary, but they changed the performer at the last minute. So I thought, if I can’t play it, I still want 'Aspiration' to be heard."

When she said that, all the leaders and teachers in the principal’s office looked at each other. After all, they really did switch Alarieka’s performance to Roschelle at the last minute.

Alarieka bit her lip and looked up at everyone anxiously: "I know I acted on my own, but it’s just a song, is there something wrong?"

The principal choked and said suspiciously, "You don’t know what went wrong?"

Alarieka looked confused and shook her head.

The principal obviously didn’t believe what she said and said seriously, "No matter what, it was all caused by you. You need to clear things up online."

Alarieka asked again, "Clarify what? Clarify to whom? Clarify what thing?" One question after another, Alarieka just wanted to force these people to admit that Roschelle had plagiarized.

Reyna stood in the corner of the office, her face unusually blank, quietly watching Alarieka with her eyes.

The principal glanced at Kieran carefully again, and when he saw Kieran’s gloomy face, he shouted angrily at Alarieka: "Alarieka, someone said Ms. Whitaker plagiarized, go clear it up! Ms. Whitaker couldn’t have plagiarized!"

When no one was looking, Alarieka lowered her head and gave a sarcastic smirk. "Why clarify it? Since Ms. Whitaker didn’t plagiarize, then the innocent stays innocent. There was really no need to clarify, or else she would fall into the trap of proving herself." She winked at Kieran and Roschelle: "Isn’t it? I believed Ms. Whitaker could do it."

Alarieka was already being so sarcastic that no one there could miss what she really meant.

Kieran’s sharp gaze swept over her, his narrow, dark eyes looking at her with a sense of pressure.

Roschelle suddenly shook her head, sobbing, put her hand on Kieran’s arm, and shook her head gently. "Kier, don’t blame her, this time I didn’t expect something like this to happen, I’ll handle it myself."

All of a sudden, Roschelle looked at her with red eyes. His eyes were firm yet fragile, like the pure, tough, and lovable characters in idol dramas.

"Ms. Huston, I didn’t know what your purpose was for doing this. But I’m telling you, this time, I absolutely wouldn’t let you do whatever you wanted anymore. I would stand up for my rights."

Looking at Roschelle, Alarieka suddenly felt a weird feeling inside. That weird feeling didn’t go away even after Roschelle pulled Kieran away.

She clenched her fists, pushed down the weird feeling in her heart, then turned to look at the principal. "If there wasn’t any problem, then I left first."

The principal looked at her with a stern face: "Alarieka, you brought this on yourself. If there’s a problem, you deal with it. The school won’t help you."

Alarieka nodded like she didn’t care and turned to leave. She walked fast, so of course she didn’t see Reyna’s complicated look.

After the school anniversary, it was the weekend. There was no school for two days, so Alarieka just stayed in the rented place and studied hard. Tamika was always watching her crazy family drama shows, and she had no idea what happened at the school anniversary. Alarieka actually didn’t want to tell her, and was happy to have some peace and quiet.

It wasn’t until she was scrolling through her phone in her free time that a news post popping up on her homepage caught her attention.

"Shocking! The news about the unknown pianist 'Lindsey' dying was fake, and her real identity was actually the famous pianist Roschelle!"

Alarieka almost immediately gripped her phone, stood up from her chair, and stared hard at the phone screen.

Tamika came over and called her, "Alarieka, don’t hold your phone so close to your eyes, you’ll get nearsighted."

She didn’t notice Tamika’s voice, just kept watching the news.

"Anyone who followed Roschelle knew that something big happened last night. Someone revealed that Roschelle’s new piano piece 'My Love' copied Lindsey’s 'Aspiration.' And just like they said, the two songs were really similar. Roschelle did seem to have plagiarized."

"But things turned around, someone revealed again that 'Lindsey,' who died three years ago, was actually Roschelle. 'Lindsey' was just an alias for Roschelle, and 'Lindsey's' 'Aspiration' was actually made by Roschelle!"