Chapter 2

The other party was satisfied, indicating they would come to collect her at the appropriate time.

Hanging up the phone, Serafina wiped her tears and returned to her hospital bed, as if the desperate eavesdropper had never existed.

In the days that followed, Ethan and Liam’s acting was impeccable, right up until the day she was discharged.

...

That day, Liam knelt on one knee, attempting to help Serafina button her coat. His fingers trembled as they avoided her bandage-wrapped hands, his movements as gentle as if he were touching a fragile icon.

"Does it hurt?" He looked up, his azure eyes filled with feigned distress.

Serafina shook her head expressionlessly.

"The car is ready." Ethan walked in holding a cashmere scarf. "It's snowing outside, Sera. Don't catch a cold."

As he wound the scarf around her neck, she smelled a cloying scent of vanilla. It was the cheap perfume Mia loved to use, mingled with Ethan’s usual woody cologne. It was nauseating.

A wave of intense revulsion surged up. She had to bite the tip of her tongue to stop herself from pushing him away right then and there.

As the wheelchair glided across the marble floor of the hospital lobby, Serafina could feel everyone's gaze pricking her like needles. Those hands that had once produced celestial music now hung over her knees like two pieces of waste meat.

A nurse’s sympathetic gaze lingered on her for a moment, and Ethan’s face instantly darkened. "What are you looking at? Get lost!"

Liam’s palm blocked her line of sight. "Don't be afraid."

His voice was so gentle it could drip water. "We will protect you. No one can hurt you."

Serafina was trembling—not from fear, but from rage. If she hadn't heard the truth with her own ears, she would never have believed that these two men, who claimed they would protect her, were the very devils who had pushed her into hell.

"Sera, wait here for a moment." Liam pushed her to a sheltered spot inside the revolving doors. "We'll go bring the car around."

Watching their backs disappear into the wind and snow, Serafina suddenly engaged the electric wheelchair. She would rather die in the snow than breathe another breath of air near them.

However, just as her wheelchair glided out of the hospital doors, a clamor shattered the silence.

"Has the dirt on the so-called 'Violin Princess' been released?" Ethan’s voice came from behind a pillar, carrying a bone-chilling coldness.

"It's been sent to all major media outlets." Liam’s voice sounded somewhat hesitant. "Sera is already ruined. Do we really need to fabricate those scandals about drug abuse and promiscuity to destroy her reputation completely?"

"We must!" Ethan shouted sternly. "If we don't thoroughly rot her name, the public will always remember her as the genius, and Mia will forever be just her substitute. Only by making Serafina Blackwood notorious can Mia truly secure the position of 'Genius Girl'."

The wheelchair came to an abrupt halt. Serafina bit her lip so hard that the rusty taste of blood spread through her mouth.

She was shocked to discover that it wasn't just physical destruction; they intended to trample her soul and dignity into the mud as well.

Serafina panic-strickenly manipulated the wheelchair, wanting to flee this vicious conversation—but she crashed headlong into a swarm of reporters lying in ambush outside the hospital.

Flashbulbs erupted like violent lightning, instantly drowning her.

"Miss Blackwood! There are rumors that your nerve necrosis was caused by long-term injection of illicit drugs. Is this true?"

"We heard you hired someone to smash your own hands just to garner sympathy. Please explain!"

"As a representative of the classical music world, aren't you ashamed of your chaotic private life?"

Just then, a group of radical "justice seekers" broke through the security line. Hurling insults, they threw rotten eggs and vegetable scraps at her.

"Liar! You don't deserve that violin!"

"Junkie! Get out of the music industry!"

Someone shoved her, and the wheelchair tipped over. Serafina fell heavily into the slush, her bandaged hands slamming violently against the ground. The piercing pain nearly made her faint.

Her coat fell open, and she lay there in a wretched heap, like a dog with a broken spine.

An overwhelming sense of humiliation consumed her. She struggled to get up, but her powerless hands caused her to fall back down time and time again.

"Oh my God, get a picture! This is the high-and-mighty Serafina!"

"Disgusting. Look at her state!"

The shutter sounds were like machine-gun fire; every click felt like a nail being driven into her coffin.

She couldn't hear anything anymore. Freezing snow water mixed with tears flowed into her mouth, bitter with despair.

"Get the hell back!" Liam roared as he charged into the crowd, taking off his jacket to cover Serafina and pulling her into his arms.

Simultaneously, Ethan shoved camera lenses away, his face iron-green as he bellowed, "Security! Where the hell is security? Who allowed you to get near her?"

They acted so realistically. If not for that conversation, Serafina might have been moved to tears once again. Only she knew that these reporters, these thugs, this entire spectacle of humiliation—it was all a play they had meticulously orchestrated.

They wanted to destroy her completely, turning her into a vermin everyone wanted to beat.

Meanwhile, Mia, whom they held in the palms of their hands, would step over her corpse to stand on the stage at Carnegie Hall, accepting the flowers and applause of the world.

Clearly, they had succeeded.