Chapter 5

The man brought Sandra to a hotel.

Sandra followed behind him, but when they reached the front desk, she realized that something was not right.

Did he think she was a slut or something?

Sandra pulled his sleeve and explained immediately, "I didn't mean that."

The man smiled and replied, "Don't worry, I didn't mean that either."

After arranging for a room at the front desk, he handed the room access card to Sandra. "Go ahead, clean up yourself and get changed."

Sandra got a good look at the man. His handsome face and positive outlook gave her a completely different feeling from Keith.

"Thank you."

The man turned around as he waved and left.

Sandra washed herself from head to toe in the room. She cleaned her clothes and laid on the bed, but she could not fall asleep.

She figured she would go back to the university the next day to see if there was still a chance to make things right.

When Sandra came to the university the next day, she was shunned by everyone. Her professor, Marcus Fowler, walked over to her and patted her shoulder.

The moment she saw Marcus, Sandra's tears welled up in her eyes and she almost cried out loud.

"It's alright, Sandra. I understand your situation. Let's try to restore the samples we made previously."

Next, Marcus gathered everyone together and started looking for a remedy to the situation.

Under Marcus' instruction, the students began to put things into action. One of Sandra's seniors came to comfort her. "We'll definitely solve this problem. Don't worry, Sandra. This issue won't delay our research and experiment exchange program."

Sandra began to tear up, and she could no longer control herself. Tears started to fall and dripped on the marble floor.

After two days of hard work, just when everyone was finally about to produce the experiment results, a teammate shouted while holding onto a phone, "Mr. White, Ivy published our data and has now been awarded the copyright."

Everyone swarmed over, voices of discussion disappeared instantly. Everyone stared at the live interview on the cell phone.

Someone asked in the interview, "This project was previously proposed in the laboratory of one of the major universities. How did you manage to publish it so quickly?"

Ivy did not panic at all. Instead, she chuckled and said, "I don't know about their research. Perhaps when we were doing the experiment, my sister, Sandra, saw our information…"

The reporter was surprised, "Are you saying that your sister copied your experimental data?"

"You may not believe me if I were to say Sandra plagiarized my work, but she did enter my room and read my experimental data. "

Ivy's eyes turned red as she said pitifully, "Sandra repeatedly ordered me not to achieve better results than her. She threatened to take action against me if I got a better place than her.

"She even claimed that due to her boyfriend being the son of the Farmer family, the consequences would be terrible."

Keith appeared at the live broadcast at that moment.

"I can vouch that everything that Ivy said is true. My Farmer family invested in this research team and the laboratory. I saw Ivy working really hard till late at night."

The situation turned chaotic, everyone in the comments of the live interview broke into discussions.

[So, Sandra's the one who plagiarized.]

[I didn't expect such a smart girl like her to do such a thing.]

[Do you think she's actually smart? She merely has the Farmer family as her support.]

Hate comments filled up the screen of the cell phone.

Sandra was accused of plagiarism.

The teammate turned off the live broadcast and clenched his hands tightly. Everyone looked at Sandra with hatred.

Not only Sandra, anyone who stood up earlier claiming that she did the experiment would be punished for plagiarism.

Everyone was dejected. One of the seniors was so agitated that he smashed the test tube in his hand.

"I've already said earlier that we can't trust Sandra! Well, now everyone's efforts in the past six months have been in vain!"

Sandra froze, not knowing how to explain herself.

She apologized to everyone. "I'm sorry, everyone. I'll definitely give you an explanation for this."

Sandra rushed out of the laboratory and took a taxi to the Farmer's residence. She pushed Keith's room door and saw him working on his desk.

Keith chuckled when he saw Sandra. "You still can't help yourself from coming back to be with me? I'll ignore the fact that you canceled our engagement. The wedding is scheduled for next month, and the venue will be twice the size of the last one."

Sandra walked to Keith. She raised her hand and slapped him. The crisp sound of slapping echoed throughout the room, and Keith was stunned by the slap.

"Sandra, what are you doing?"

"You know clearly how important the experiment data are to me. Why are you helping Ivy?"

Keith grabbed her arm and replied, "Ivy is depressed. What will you do if she hurts herself?"

"Does that mean that I have to be responsible for her for the rest of her life?"

"You already have everything that should belong to her. She just wants a little bit of your experiment data. What's wrong with that?"

Sandra felt that she could no longer communicate with Keith. She turned around to leave, but Keith hugged her tightly from behind.

"Sandra, stop causing trouble. You have your parents and I, but Ivy is an orphan. Once you marry into the Farmer family, you don't need all all this research and honors at all."

Sandra struggled to break free and turned around.

She looked at Keith firmly. "Listen carefully, Keith. When I broke off our engagement earlier, it wasn't out of anger. I was dead serious. Let's just end it here."

Keith's eyes turned red. He had never seen Sandra look so fierce before. He knew Sandra was serious.

Keith picked up Sandra and carried her on his shoulders. He carried her to the wine cellar in the basement, and locked her inside. He would not open the door no matter how Sandra banged on the door.

"Sandra, you said you'd stay with me forever. I'll let you out once you figure it out."

Sandra beat the door of the wine cellar fiercely, but there was no response. It was the first time she saw Keith look so scary.

She paced up and down, holding her cell phone and searching all corners of the wine cellar. She thought of all the ways to escape, but it was useless.

No one would come to her rescue.

Sandra finally gave up. She felt dizzy from the continuous rain in the past few days, coupled with the huge emotional fluctuations. She was dazed for a moment.

Everything would be fine had Ivy never appeared. How great would it be if Keith was who he was before.

However, there was no turning back.