Chapter 9

At first, the post was relentlessly attacked by Natalie's haters, but it was soon backed by people she'd helped in the past. The opposition's voice gradually grew weaker, and people started to recall her good deeds. At that moment, a fan posted a video. The caption read, "I have been Natalie's fan for five years. Before the incident happened, I was planning to visit her and offer some encouragement, but I ended up stumbling upon a secret. "I initially planned to hand this over to her directly, but I never had the chance to. Later on, I tried to reach out to her brother or fiancé, but I was threatened by the woman in the video. "In order to survive, my family and I escaped overseas. I only had the chance to share this after all this time, but it's too late now." The video was pitch black, but a woman's malicious tone could be heard clearly. "I'll pay you three million upfront. Get a group of thugs to gang-rape her, and I'll give you another million once it's done." An unknown man's voice soon replied, "But she did nothing wrong. Why do you want to destroy her?" The malicious voice sneered, "She's blocking my way to the top, so I have to get rid of her!" The video suddenly jerked, and in a brief flash in the end, the woman's face appeared—it was none other than the newly crowned dance fairy, Clara. The netizens erupted in a frenzy at that instance. Everyone had believed in the initial news that broke out, thinking that Natalie was truly the kind of promiscuous woman who deserved to be shamed publicly, that she enjoyed being with multiple men, and that that was why she'd become crippled and died in the sea. But now, this video was blatantly telling everyone that someone was pulling the strings behind the scenes—and it was none other than their new favorite, Clara. The revelation sparked an uproar. Netizens quickly began to dig for evidence of Clara bullying Natalie. Then, a netizen who claimed to have a relative working with the Carter family left a sudden comment. The user wrote, "My relative has been working for the Carters for five years. All this while, Clara constantly slandered Natalie in various ways, and every time, Mr. Carter and Mr. Hall believed Clara. "Especially Mr. Carter—he even ordered the security guards to punish Natalie without any explanation. Over time, Clara managed to build up a pitiful image in front of Mr. Carter and Mr. Hall. That's why they fulfilled all her requests—including helping her rise to the top. "They were also involved in finding the thugs to gang-rape Natalie, but their instructions were to only ruin her body, not to go all the way. But everyone knows what happened in the end." As they dug deeper, the long-buried secrets of the Carter family finally resurfaced. Angry netizens flooded the official websites of Carter Group and Hall Group, cursing the two men for being blind and heartless. They also stormed Clara's X account with hate—some even showed up outside her door to confront her. The situation was already out of hand, but Jayden and Logan had no idea any of this was happening. … It was the third day Jayden had been drifting on the sea. He sat on the deck and looked at the diver who'd just resurfaced with bloodshot eyes. "Any progress?" The diver regretfully shook his head and replied, "Still nothing." Jayden angrily slammed his fist on the deck. It had been three whole days, and he hadn't slept a wink. Scenes of Natalie dying in the cruise explosion would resurface every time he closed his eyes. Since the day of the incident, Jayden had mobilized all the Carter family's resources to search the waters. But until now, they hadn't even found any of Natalie's belongings, much less her body.