Chapter 3

I sneered. "It's clear that you're the peasant here, yet you insist on acting like the master. Aren't you tired of this, Evonne?"

A crowd started gathering in the classroom, and the classmates who had always fawned over Evonne and Angelo, without any prompting, immediately stepped forward to criticize me.

"Evonne and Angelo have always felt sorry for you, Chase, which is why they asked the housekeeper to bring you a meal too. How could you be so ungrateful?"

"Exactly. Everyone knows you're just pretending to be some rich kid but can't even afford food. If Evonne had not enlisted you as her little sidekick, you'd have starved to death by now."

"A sidekick? Me?" I stared at the gossipers across from me. "You're the ones who are spreading these rumors?"

With an air of entitlement, Evonne threw in a casual remark, "And you've been doing a good job in this role, haven't you?"

To hell with "doing a good job." I was not about to expose Evonne's true colors so easily, but I wasn't going to let this slide either. I turned to Mrs. Cervantes and demanded, "I want pork ribs today. Go handle it."

Mrs. Cervantes' face turned pale.

As the tension hung in the air, Angelo, afraid that the truth would come out, quickly switched his lunchbox with mine. "Chase, I'll let you have my meal today, but you should watch your attitude from now on."

Angelo was still planning to eat food from my house in the future? He could dream on!

I grabbed the lunchbox and quietly dug in as our classmates looked at me in disapproval.

"Some people are truly shameless. How could he have the nerve to eat Angelo's food? And how does Angelo tolerate this? He's way too classy."

"This housekeeper has probably come all the way from the Shannon residence. Could Evonne be the daughter of the Shannons?"

"Even if she isn't, she must be close to them. Chase has offended the Shannons, so his future is probably screwed."

I called my mother during the afternoon break, telling her to install security cameras at home and keep an eye on Mrs. Cervantes. She did not ask why, just agreed without hesitation.

Hearing my mother's response, a heaviness pressed down on my chest. She had given me everything unconditionally, yet what had I given her in return? Evonne and her little boyfriend deserved hell for what they did!

"Mom, for this year's underprivileged students Shannon Corp. visit, add Evonne to the list," I suggested. I had been covering Evonne's expenses for the past two years. If I didn't give her a reminder soon, she would probably forget her real identity.

When I returned to the classroom, a group of people was surrounding Angelo, offering him comfort.

Later that afternoon, as I expected, Angelo placed dead last in the piano competition.

The moment Evonne spotted me, she rushed over and said angrily, "Ange lost the competition. Your plan succeeded. Do you think this will make me give up on Ange and fall for you? Chase Shannon, just wake up and stop dreaming."

I rolled my eyes. "Who stuffed your head with all this nonsense? With Angelo's toe-level piano skill, this result was inevitable."

Angelo roared, "Chase Shannon! Is shirking responsibility all you do?!"

"Responsibility for what? I don't remember lending you the feet you used to play the piano," I replied.

Angelo fell silent, and his lackeys immediately jumped in to attack me.

"Chase, do you think you can hide what you've done just by omitting it? If you hadn't frozen Evonne's account, she would've bought Angelo a better piano."

"Exactly. Evonne treats you like her butler, yet you stab her in the back. That's disgusting."

I turned to Evonne and asked, "Your account? I have control over your money?"

"Well, duh. If it's going to be spent on me eventually, why can't I go ahead and make a withdrawal in advance?" Evonne responded shamelessly as if this was the world's natural order.

As my hand trembled in anger, I looked down at the finalized underprivileged students list for the Shannon Corp. visit. After glancing over it, I nodded slightly in approval and told them to send it out. If Evonne had shown even a shred of decency, I would've let her off for a couple more days. But it was clear to me now that she was dancing with death.

A minute later, some of our classmates received a text from the school on their phones. One of the underprivileged students shouted excitedly, "I made it onto the list for the Shannon Corp. visit!"

"Me too! What a great opportunity!" Another person cheered, but he then glanced over at Evonne in confusion. "Evonne, why are you at the top of the list? Are you an underprivileged student too?"

"What?" Evonne, who had been leaning against a desk, was shocked and lost her balance. She fell to the floor, her face as pale as a sheet.