Chapter 5183

Hannah felt like her whole world had come crashing down around her. Hearing her own voice in the headlines of an internet scandal felt like a personal betrayal, like a knife to the heart. It was like stumbling upon a video of herself on some dodgy website and feeling her face flush with shame and embarrassment. Her inner defenses crumbled in an instant, and she slumped down into the bathtub, her nerves fried. She took a gulp of the warm, salty bathwater, hoping to calm her jangled nerves. But even that didn't help - she was a mess of anxiety and confusion. Suddenly, she sat up with a start, looking at the phone again in shock. Her eyes were as wide as saucers, her heart racing a mile a minute. The full impact of the situation was starting to hit her, and she was completely overwhelmed. As she watched the video, Hannah felt a creeping sense of unease settle over her. It was like watching a replay of the events that had unfolded just an hour ago - herself, strutting around like a queen, browbeating the hapless Wilson family into submission. The camera angle was strange, as if it had been taken from a small gap in the balcony curtains. But who could have possibly shot it? As she studied the footage more closely, Hannah became even more confused. The doors and windows of the villa were all laminated and designed to be soundproof, filled with inert gas to ensure maximum insulation. Even if there were fireworks going off outside, she could barely hear a thing with the windows closed. So why was the audio on the video so crystal-clear? It was as if the camera had been right there in the room with her, picking up every word she said. The more she thought about it, the more it sent a chill down her spine. Something was seriously off about all of this.

Hannah was undeniably the brighter of the two, but when it came to this particular situation, Elaine had the upper hand. Living in the same type of villa as Hannah, Elaine had already known that candid shots from the outside could only capture video, without any sound. She was one step ahead of the game, and had cleverly recruited Gina and a few others to help her out. They had divided up the labor, with one person filming discreetly from outside, and another attempting to surreptitiously record the sound from within. Despite the fact that the villa's doors and windows were soundproofed to the extreme, the insulation was only for the outside. The interior doors were not particularly fortified, and that was the loophole that Elaine had seized upon. It dawned on Hannah that her days of getting rich through live broadcasts and shoddy goods were numbered! The video, which had been exposed, had brought her empire crumbling down, and she knew that her potential income of hundreds of millions or even billions would be severely impacted. Taking people's money was akin to killing their parents, or so the old saying went. At that moment, Hannah's heart was consumed by hatred, and she longed to find the person responsible for revealing her deceit and tear them limb from limb! As if on cue, she swiped down on her phone, skimming past the incriminating video and diving straight into the report's text. To her dismay, the script of her live broadcasts was laid bare, as were her approximate earnings and other financial data. But it was one line in particular that sent her over the edge, causing her to leap out of the bathtub in a fit of fury. The line read, "According to a user on the short video platform named 'Elaine, An Anti-Scammer'..."