Chapter 400
Lydia couldn’t help but feel it was a little strange for Maureen to bring up this topic right now. But with the cameras rolling and Maureen looking like she wasn’t going to let it go, Lydia had no choice but to smile and nod.
Maureen sneered, “What a coincidence. You said you just started designing these drawings recently, but why did I see them a few years ago?”
Lydia was stunned. “Wh-what?”
Maureen slipped her arm out of Lydia’s grasp and motioned for everyone to look at the screen behind them.
The screen displayed a series of chat logs, all about Maureen and her friend discussing the comic design for Cloudland Winery.
The drafts her friend sent looked almost exactly like the ones Lydia just showed-except these were from years ago.
Maureen stared coldly at Lydia, whose face had gone pale. “These comic design drafts were created by me and my friend, step by step. Every single revision is saved and documented.
“Ms. Bennett, you’re not about to say you were my friend all along, are you?”
As the author of Cloudland Winery, Maureen had seen Lydia’s drafts ahead of time and had tested her, both openly and behind the scenes, more than once. She was absolutely certain that Lydia was not the friend she’d been looking for.
So, the drafts Lydia brought out had to be stolen from her friend. These drafts stood for the friendship between her and her friend-something Maureen treasured deeply. She would never let anyone sully that.
That’s why she had to unmask this phony in front of everyone and finally find the friend she’d been waiting to hear from for so long.
The sudden plot twist blew up the internet. Hashtags were trending nonstop, and the whole web was in an uproar. Emily had been glued to the livestream the whole time, but she never saw this coming.
This was the first time she realized that May was actually Maureen. She never imagined Maureen would call out Lydia in front of everyone at such a crucial moment. Emily knew Maureen was standing up for her, for the sake of their friendship.
Even though Emily wasn’t planning to reveal herself to Maureen until the whole St. Gabriel Reform Academy mess was sorted out, she wasn’t about to waste Maureen’s goodwill.
She immediately had people start leading the comments online. [Lydia is the genius artist Tato, even Amy herself praised her. There’s no way she’d ever plagiarize. This has to be a misunderstanding.]
With her system on her side and Lydia’s sizable fanbase, this take caught on instantly, and soon the comment section was flooded with people repeating it.
Maureen saw those comments too, but just scoffed. “Talent and character are two different things. Amy had praised Lydia’s skills, but she never vouched for her character.”
That was basically Maureen flat-out undercutting Amy’s endorsement of Lydia, and since it was coming from Amy’s own niece, no one could really refute her.
Lydia never expected any of this to happen. With all the cameras pointed at her, she was completely at a loss, an overwhelming panic, stronger than anything she’d ever felt before, crashed over her.
‘How could it end up like this? How did things get so out of control?’ Lydia’s mind spun in confusion. She was so shaken that
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Chapter 400
all she could do was shake her head again and again. “No, that’s not true, I didn’t…”
She had absolutely no idea what to do. Finally, Lydia’s eyes rolled back, and she fainted on the spot.
Everyone was left completely dumbfounded. All those sharp questions and accusations they’d been dying to throw at her just got stuck in their throats. No one even had the chance to speak.
