Chapter 29

Noelle raised an eyebrow defiantly. “Oh, I always keep the fact that Xenia’s father saved me in mind,” she said. There was no way she could forget. She then refused to continue the conversation and shut the door.

This left Frank standing outside, staring at the necklace in his hand. Regret welled up as he replayed his earlier words. However, he felt that Noelle was somewhat to blame, since she had deliberately provoked him. She was a clever girl, so there was no way she wouldn’t have understood what he meant. He wondered if she had done so deliberately because she was still mad.

Frank stared at the closed door and sighed inwardly, thinking, “What am I supposed to do with you, Noelle?”

Inside her room, Noelle was in a sour mood. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to hope that her brothers would realize their wrongdoings and regret their actions. She had expected too much and underestimated how important Xenia was to Frank. After all, a simple bowl of soup from Xenia was enough to move him to tears, while the years of medicinal congee she painstakingly made were nothing but trash to him.

She was done with all that. Now, it was time for her to take everything back. She wasn’t going to join Lucas’s team, prepare Frank’s medicinal congee, or maintain Donovan’s firewall system. The same went for her other brothers. She was prepared to take every single thing back.

Noelle clicked into a gaming forum and discovered that one of her recent posts, “A Beginner’s Guide to Achieving a 12-Hit Combo,” had gone viral. Many users had saved her post, though a few left mocking comments. Noelle didn’t bother defending herself, since the strategies she’d shared were simply based on what her old friend had told her in the past.

Just then, she received a message. When she clicked on the sender’s profile, she realized it was Lucas’s account. The message read, “Hey, do you remember how you snatched my boss kill last time?” Of course she did. She’d done it on purpose, after all.

She ignored him, and a second message arrived. “How about joining a professional team? Feel free to negotiate your terms. I think you have potential, so you should get proper training in a team!”

Noelle found his message deeply ironic. She wondered if Lucas had finally realized…

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…Frustrated, Lucas slammed his computer shut. He’d been forced to live elsewhere because of her. Truthfully, he somewhat regretted hitting her the other day. However, there was no way he would put his pride aside and apologize. After all, he’d grown used to having Noelle be the first one to comfort him.

Time flew by, and soon, it was time for the final mock exams. Noelle was feeling confident with how smoothly her papers had gone. She finished early and left the classroom, so she decided to take a walk around the school field to take a breather. However, when she returned, she saw Xenia crying at her desk, her usual entourage nowhere in sight.

“Don’t cry, Xenia. We know you would never cheat.”

“That’s right. I’m sure our teacher will get to the bottom of this and clear up the misunderstanding.”

“Exactly. Your grades have always been quite good, so there’s no need for you to cheat.”