chapter313

Joan noticed how hard it was for Mrs. Smith to catch her breath, so she hurried over, helped her into the wheelchair, and poured her a glass of water. Mrs. Smith took a few deep breaths to settle down, then reached for her phone and called Lydia.

Lydia was just stepping into her office when she saw her grandmother's name flash on the screen. After a split second, a rare warmth lit up her usually cool eyes, and the corners of her pretty mouth curled into a smile. Hi, Grandma.

Hearing Lydia call her that, Mrs. Smith felt her heart melt. "Lyds, your final exam results are out. You did amazing. I'm so proud of you."

Lydia raised an eyebrow. She hadn't even told her grandma about her grades yet, and the news about her perfect score hadn't hit the internet. The media must still be busy scrambling to write their stories.

"Grandma, did the school call you?"

There was a pause. Mrs. Smith's voice turned gentle. "It was your homeroom teacher."

Lydia could already guess what was going on from her grandma's hesitation. "They don't believe my score, do they?"

Mrs. Smith said quietly, "I believe you."

Lydia's smile grew. Grandma, if the school calls again, you don't have to pick up. Don't answer them at all. I'll take care of it."

Mrs. Smith didn't want to make things worse and risk damaging Lydia's reputation. She trusted her granddaughter, but she knew not everyone would.

"Lyds..."

"Grandma, those rumors don't bother me. I'll get this sorted out soon. All you have to do is focus on getting better. I'll come visit you in a couple of days."

Mrs. Smith nodded. "Alright."

As soon as she hung up, Lydia pulled up the security cameras at her grandmother's house. She'd installed them all over the old place just so she could keep an eye on her grandma, living alone.

She found the footage of the call with Ms. Santoro. The phone had been on

speaker, so Lydia heard every nasty word the teacher had said.

A cold, sharp light flashed through Lydia's dark eyes.

Ms. Santoro.

Anyone who knew Lydia would recognize that look. Someone was about to get what was coming to them.

Right then, Ms. Santoro was talking

et bee

to someone on the phone, acting sweet as pie. "Oh, don't worry. Lydia's always been lazy at school, so her perfect score had to be cheating. I'm just doing everyone a favor Back when she was with the Smiths, they didn't care if she lived or died. She only survived because that useless old lady from the countryside fed her."

The person on the other end agreed. "Good. Keep spreading the rumor that she cheated. The bigger the mess, the better."

Ms. Santoro laughed openly. "No problem. As soon as her grades came out everyone at school was suspicious. If post screenshots from the class group chat so people" can see what her own classmates say about her."

"Perfect."

Just as the call was about to end, Ms. Santoro piped up, "What about the rest of the money?"

"Don't worry. As soon as you get the cheating story out there and people start talking, the money will show up in your account.

When the call ended, Ms. Santoro

clenched her fists, excited. She'd never imagined that catching Lydia, the so-called slacker, cheating her way to a perfect score would actually make her this much money.

Five million.

Maybe Lydia wasn't so useless after all.

She shook her head, clicked her tongue, and quickly went into the group chat to screenshot everyone's reactions to Lydia's score. Then she dug up Lydia's old report cards and saved those too.

An hour later, all the major news outlets started reporting the name of this year's only student with a perfect score on the national exams.