Chapter 91 The Escalation of the Secret War

Chapter 91 The Escalation of the Secret War

From the moment their collaboration began, Selene's harassment never let up.

She'd deliberately send revision requests two hours before closing time, demanding drafts by dawn.

During material reviews, she'd nitpick for no reason, claiming the wood panels Olivia selected weren't high-end enough.

She even secretly paid off interns on Olivia's team, trying to get inside information about their progress.

But Olivia, who'd been dealing with harassment for years, was immune to these tactics. She simply tackled each challenge one by one.

When she got last-minute requests, she had her team divide the work and deliver on time, even including cost comparison charts to give their partners complete transparency.

When the wood panels were questioned, she took the partners directly to the lumber yard to prove the materials were both eco-friendly and cost-effective.

When the intern turned in the money, she smiled and said, "We appreciate Ms. Peterson's gesture, but our studio has rules—we don't accept side payments."

After several rounds, Selene came up empty-handed and only made herself look petty.

She stared at the security monitor showing Olivia calmly directing her team.

Suddenly, she remembered Anna—the designer in Olivia's studio who'd never seemed entirely loyal to her.

When Selene had her assistant contact Anna, she hesitated for a moment.

But ultimately, she couldn't resist the opportunity to be the "Design Director at the Peterson Group."

"Olivia's team is revising the atrium design," Selene briefed her over the phone.

"Find a way to steal the final CAD files, and I guarantee you'll be running the Peterson Group's design department next month."

Anna's jaw clenched at those words.

After working together all these years, Anna knew Olivia's habits inside and out.

She stored all important files on the studio's shared server, with passwords that were team project codes.

While Olivia was in the break room taking a call, Anna quickly accessed the server and copied the "Final Atrium Design" onto her flash drive.

At the next day's review meeting, Selene immediately presented a design, saying smugly, "Our team optimized the atrium proposal. We changed the glass dome to a retractable structure—it saves costs and allows for light adjustment."

Everyone looked at the projection and noticed that aside from the dome modification, every other detail was nearly identical to the version Olivia's team had discussed internally the week before.

The client representative's eyes lit up. "That's a nice change. Whose idea was it?"

"Our team came up with it after working all night," Selene said, glancing at Olivia with pure provocation in her eyes.

But Olivia suddenly smiled. She signaled her assistant to open her laptop. "Ms. Peterson's modification is indeed clever, but there's one small problem—"

She pulled up a structural analysis diagram.

"The retractable dome's bearings need to be installed on load-bearing columns, but these columns have municipal utility lines running through them. We stored a detection report on our server last week with clear markings."

Selene's smile froze. "When... when did you run this report?"

"Right after Ms. Harper accessed our server yesterday at 3:15 PM."

Olivia opened the server access logs, showing the time, account, and list of accessed files.

"Plus, our final draft has a little marker—a tiny code in the corner that reads 'Commemorating the 2019 Design Competition,' the competition Ms. Harper's always been hung up on."

"Ms. Peterson's team's drawing seems to have that same line of code?"

The room went dead silent.

All eyes turned to Anna, whose face had gone white as she unconsciously gripped the hem of her shirt.

What did this prove? It was crystal clear evidence that Anna was in cahoots with the Peterson Group.

"And there's this," Olivia said, pulling up security footage.

The video showed Anna sneaking a flash drive into the server.

The hallway camera had caught every movement crystal clear.

"Anna," Olivia looked at her, her voice perfectly calm without a trace of emotion.

"You said you wanted to move into project management, so I gave you the project coordination work."

"Is this how you repay me?"

Anna was terrified. Tears streamed down her face as she choked up, unable to speak.

Selene was livid and frantic, but couldn't find the words to argue back.

The client representative's expression darkened. "Ms. Peterson, collaborative design is built on trust above all else."

"When you steal others' ideas like this, it becomes very hard for us to have confidence in you."

The review meeting ended badly.

As they left the conference room, Anna chased after Olivia, crying, "Olivia, I screwed up. Please give me another chance..."

Olivia stopped and looked at her coldly. "I've already reported this to the supervisor. He said you can go straight to HR for your final paycheck."

"Don't do anything this stupid again."

Watching Anna's dejected figure disappear, her assistant asked quietly, "Olivia, did you know she would betray you?"

"I wasn't sure, but when she was so eager to get involved in this project, I had a feeling something was off."

"It never hurts to be careful."

Olivia gazed out the window. "Some people's greed runs deeper than we think."

Meanwhile, John was dealing with his own problems.

Halfway through his new film's promotional period, the online narrative suddenly shifted.

It started with scattered comments criticizing his "wooden expressions."

Within two days, it had blown up into a full-scale attack.

People dug up clips from a variety show he'd done two years ago, screenshotting unflattering angles to mock him for "plastic surgery."

Others made up rumors about him "being a diva and bullying newcomers," complete with blurry behind-the-scenes videos that sounded surprisingly convincing.

Lily burst into the makeup room clutching her laptop.

John had just finished filming a rain scene and was wrapped in a towel, drying his hair.

"John, look at this!" She shoved the screen in his face, her voice nearly breaking.

"The trending topics are all trashing you, and people found out you're Mr. Williams' son. They're saying you only got into film school because of daddy's money!"

John glanced at the vicious comments without even flinching.

He casually tossed the towel onto a chair. "Just delete them."

"We can't delete them!" Lily practically stomped her feet.

"This is clearly coordinated. As soon as we delete one batch, another pops up. The PR team is barely keeping up. I think we should put out a statement to set the record straight and get some people to help control the narrative—"

"Set what straight?" John cut her off, his voice edged with impatience.

"The more we explain, the more worked up they get. Better to let it die down."

"Let it die down?" Lily couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"If this keeps up, the public's gonna think you're a complete scumbag!"

"The investors just called, saying if public opinion doesn't turn around by next week, they're thinking about replacing you!"

"Let them replace me," John said, picking up the script and flipping to the next page.

"When I took this role, I said I only cared about the script, not the hype."

"How can you be so chill about this?" Lily's voice cracked as her eyes immediately welled up.

"Do you know how many all-nighters I've pulled trying to kill these rumors? Do you know how many fans have turned their backs on you because of these lies?"

"John, this isn't just about you—it's about everyone on the team's hard work!"