Chapter 544 Ashes and Scandals

The moment the reporter said it, Owen snapped. His eyes were bloodshot as he shouted, “Where did this nonsense come from? This is outrageous!”

But the reporter calmly responded, “Mr. Owen, if you want to deny it, then maybe you can explain that?”

He held up a photo for everyone to see.

In the picture, Owen was sitting in what was clearly a woman’s bedroom, his arm around Elsie. Her head rested on his shoulder with a blissful smile.

Seeing her face and that familiar smile, Owen froze. For a moment, it felt like he had traveled back in time—back when Elsie was still alive, when she smiled at him, when she always stepped in to help him in difficult moments.

He was briefly lost in that warm memory.

But the rest of the press swarmed the photo like flies drawn to blood, snapping away with their cameras. “Mr. Owen,” one of them asked, “you seem quite intimate with your sister in this photo. Care to explain?”

Owen snapped out of it, his face darkening in disgust. His sister had just died, and they were already spewing slander at her funeral?

“We were close, yes,” Owen said coldly. “I’m her brother, she’s my sister. It was just a moment between siblings. Putting your arm around someone doesn’t make it romantic.”

“Mr. Owen, you clearly don’t understand boundaries. Anyone can see this is how couples behave.”

Owen sneered, “This isn’t the Stone Age. You’re fine with sons kissing their mothers, but you want to crucify me for putting my arm around my sister?”

“Mr. Owen, what we suspect is that you were in a relationship with your sister. Oscar found out, and you killed her to cover it up—and then framed him. Isn’t that the truth?”

Owen was shaking with fury. These reporters had no shame.

His rage erupted. He lunged toward the reporter, trying to drag him out of the crowd. “Come out and say that to my face, if you’ve got the guts!”

But the man quickly ducked into the press mob, disappearing before anyone could identify him.

What did get captured, though, were Owen’s twisted expressions of fury—perfect material for malicious edits and online smear campaigns.

With that photo as supposed “evidence,” online speculation about Owen and Elsie’s relationship intensified. People claiming to know them came forward with stories, pretending to speak as insiders to confirm the rumor.

It wasn’t just Owen. Reporters now swarmed Lily, too.

“Madam Lily, as the mother of three children, what’s your view on how your children behave?”

“Is it true that Elsie and Owen had an incestuous relationship? Are you really okay with letting your children behave like that?”

“Madam Lily, was it Owen who framed Oscar? Say something! Are you mute, or are you too guilty to speak?”

“Wasn’t there another girl wrongly accused during the SAT scandal also named Yunice Saunders? What’s your connection to that case?”

“Madam Lily, do you want Oscar released, or do you want him prosecuted?”

Lily was shoved back and forth in the chaos. The reporters, desperate for a reaction, shoved microphones into her face.

She cried out and fell to the ground, getting stepped on several times in the scuffle.

Eventually, security from the funeral home pushed the swarm of reporters away, clearing a path so Lily and Owen could escape.

The media coverage uploaded to the internet stopped there.

Yunice scrolled through the comments under the video. Netizens were acting like detectives, each spinning theories about her and Owen. Conspiracies about the Saunders family were being posted like fact. The whole family had been demonized.

What disgusted her most was seeing her name—Yunice Saunders—attached to Elsie’s crimes, even in death.

That name had been given to her by her father. Even if she would never be part of the Saunders family again, even if she and Owen were no longer siblings, she couldn’t allow that name to be dragged through the mud.

Back at the funeral home, Owen cradled Elsie’s urn. Lily held her portrait. Both of them wept as they staggered out the back exit.

Once the door shut, the noise finally faded.

Lily stroked the edge of Elsie’s photo frame, her voice hollow with hatred. “Why won’t they let us be? Even after you’re gone, they won’t stop. Are they trying to drive us to death, too?”

Owen sank to the ground, pressing his cheek to Elsie’s urn, as if that would bring her back.

Then a pair of polished leather shoes stopped in front of them.

Startled, both Owen and Lily looked up.

It was Paul, dressed in a black suit, a white mourning flower pinned to his chest. He stood there at an odd angle, his whole posture twisted and grim.

Aside from the carved scars on his face, he now had a fresh wound on his forehead—an ugly, dark red scab.

Owen swallowed hard, heart pounding.