Chapter 245

Ross wasn’t actually bothered by how Danielle had acted back then. Like she’d said, she only did all that stuff because she liked him. Now that she didn't like him anymore, she’d cut things off completely clean. Maybe it was better this way anyway.

Ross stayed away from romantic relationships. He knew he wasn’t the right guy for Danielle.

When Janice saw Ross come downstairs, she let out a cold snort and ignored him completely.

“Grandma, you haven’t talked to me all day,” Ross sighed.

“I’ve got nothing to say to you, you little brat,” Janice snorted.

Ross just felt helpless about the whole thing. He cut up some fruit for Janice and patiently tried to win her over.

Shermaine was much more friendly though. “Ross, I brought you a present.”

Ross dropped onto the couch. “Thanks, Sheary.” He obviously didn’t bring up Danielle and changed the subject instead. “I watched the live stream of the tech conference. You were amazing.”

He felt proud to be Shermaine’s brother, and he was grateful that in a crowd of thousands, he’d recognized her as his sister right away.

The tech world in the Republic of Wallington was probably buzzing about Shermaine crushing it at the conference right about now.

Republic of Wallington reporters had actually published stories about it. Social media and all the major forums were talking it up, and even official media outlets came out with praise.

It made it onto the trending topics for a while, but it didn’t rank that high.

Shermaine didn’t ask Joshua to suppress the buzz or anything, but weirdly enough, it just never really took off. She didn’t care either way and didn’t pay much attention to it.

It didn’t really matter if random people knew about it, but in Republic of Wallington’s tech circles, the news had probably spread like wildfire by now.

The thing was, it never actually blew up because Kylie had quietly killed all the buzz on social media. She didn’t just target Republic of Wallington platforms either. She went after international social media too.

Kylie couldn’t stand the thought of Shermaine shining at that international tech conference and then getting showered with praise and admiration afterward.

Meanwhile, she’d be getting roasted by Moranta netizens for being so arrogant when she couldn’t even crack the top two spots. Plus, she was losing followers left and right.

Once being a young female tech genius wasn’t special anymore, all those guys who were just there for her looks ditched her in a heartbeat.

Kylie was supposed to head back to Moranta after finishing her mission, but now she had a new plan. She wanted to kill Shermaine for screwing everything up for her.

So, Kylie followed Sarah back to Republic of Wallington, but when they got there, Shermaine and Joshua were nowhere to be found. She decided to expand her social circle and stick around longer by applying for a professor position at Basterel University.

As for Sarah, she was still obsessed with saving Black River Company from their financial mess.

Even though it was clearly hopeless and Joshua kept shooting down her proposals every time she brought it up, she just wouldn’t give up. She acted like if she just kept pushing, somehow things would magically turn around.

Shermaine had been back at Jean residence for a while now, but she noticed Ruth wasn’t around. Her eyes swept the room as she asked, “Where is Ruth?”

Janice answered right away, “She left first thing this morning and said she was going for some beauty treatments. Janice has been doing this for days now, out early, back late. Pretty soon, she’ll be just like your dad, never coming home at all.”

Shermaine looked thoughtful about that. Ross didn’t say anything either. They basically understood each other without having to spell it out.

But Shermaine decided to be extra careful about this.

Last month, Ruth had been playing nice with her, but then she’d started going after Natalie and Jason constantly. She got people to trash talk Natalie online, even had someone throw paint at Natalie’s house, and totally humiliated her at Jason’s graduation party.

There was no way Natalie wouldn’t fight back after all that.

When Janice went to the kitchen to check on her soup, Shermaine turned to Ross. “Hey, I need you to get someone to keep tabs on Ruth. Have them report back to me every day about what she’s up to.”

Ross didn’t ask any questions. He just nodded and said he’d handle it.