Chapter 273

Chapter 273

She turned stiffly toward Lucinda, stammering. "Mr. Douglas, Mrs. Douglas... what did you just call her? Isn't she just some poor scholarship student with no background?"

Reginald walked over to Lucinda's side, his expression blank. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, utterly natural. "She's the treasured daughter of the Douglas family. And my one and only fiancée."

Fiancée.

One word. Heavy as a mountain. It sent shockwaves through the office.

The vice dean's teacup slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor.

His knees buckled. He dropped to the ground with a thud, his face ghostly white.

"Mr. Lancaster! Mr. Douglas! I was blind! I didn't recognize who she was! I had no idea Ms. Wipere was your fiancée—I swear I didn't know!"

He slapped himself across the face repeatedly, kowtowing frantically. All trace of his earlier arrogance had vanished.

Layla stood frozen beside them, mouth hanging open.

Lucinda... was the daughter of the Douglas family?

And the fiancée of the all-powerful Mr. Lancaster?

What kind of golden lifeline had she just latched onto?

Reginald ignored the vice dean groveling on the floor. His gaze shifted to Stella and her daughter. "Stella, your daughter just said she wanted to cripple my fiancée's hand?"

Stella's entire body shook violently.

For the Lancaster family to crush the Fullers would be easier than squashing an ant.

Stella whipped around and slapped Saskia hard across the face.

The blow was vicious. Half of Saskia's face swelled immediately.

"You idiot! Who gave you the nerve?!" Stella shrieked hysterically. Then she rushed to Lucinda, dropped to her knees, and bowed ninety degrees, her voice trembling. "Ms. Wipere! I'm sorry! I failed to raise her properly! I was blind! Please, I beg you, show mercy and spare the Fuller family this once!"

Saskia sat on the floor, clutching her face, stunned. Fear finally flickered in her eyes.

Lucinda watched the scene coldly. Her expression didn't shift.

"I don't forgive you." Her voice was flat, without inflection.

Reginald turned his cold gaze away and spoke to Aiden behind him. "Spread the word. Saskia is expelled. Banned from the scientific community for life. Terminate all Fuller family partnerships immediately. Full blacklist. As for this vice dean..."

He glanced down at the man still kowtowing like a hammer. "Send him to the authorities. Dig up every dirty dollar he's taken."

"Yes, Mr. Lancaster."

Within minutes, the wailing Fuller mother and daughter and the collapsed vice dean were dragged out like dead dogs by security.

The chaos faded. The office fell quiet.

Lucinda turned to Layla, who still looked completely shell-shocked, and couldn't help but smile slightly. "Scared?"

"No... not at all." Layla shook her head rapidly, her eyes shining as she looked at Lucinda. "Lucinda, you're incredible!"

Lucinda turned to the trembling institute supervisor standing nearby. "From today on, I don't want to see any more bullying of scholarship students at this institute. Also, I'm personally funding a scholarship program to support talented students from difficult backgrounds. Layla gets the first spot."

The supervisor didn't dare refuse. He bowed and nodded repeatedly. "Yes, yes, of course, Ms. Wipere. We'll handle it right away!"

Layla's tears spilled over immediately.

She bowed deeply to Lucinda. "Lucinda, thank you. Thank you so much!"

This wasn't just changing her fate—it was giving hope to everyone like her who'd been struggling in the dark.

After seeing off the Douglas parents and Tamsin, night began to fall.

Inside the car, Reginald sat with his eyes closed, but one hand was tightly clasped around Lucinda's fingers.

Lucinda's phone buzzed. The screen read "Master."

The moment she answered, Royce's furious voice boomed through the line. "Cindy! I just heard some Fuller family brat tried to mess with you at the institute! Outrageous! Who dares touch my student? I've already sent people to wreck their operations. When the market opens tomorrow, I'm tanking their stock by billions!"

Royce was pacing frantically on the other end. "No, this won't do. I'm going to publicly reveal your identity. Let those blind fools see exactly who you are!"

Hearing the explosive concern in his voice, warmth flickered in Lucinda's eyes. She spoke patiently. "Calm down. It's already handled. The Fullers won't be causing any more trouble."

"That's not enough!" Royce was beside himself. "Forget that garbage institute—you already know everything they're teaching anyway. Going there is a waste of your time!"

"I want to go." Lucinda leaned back in the passenger seat. "Taking things step by step is fine. I don't want special treatment."

Seeing her determination, Royce sighed on the other end, his anger cooling. "Fine. You're as stubborn as ever. But I'm backing you up. Can't have every stray cat and dog thinking you're easy to push around."

His tone grew serious. "The institute has a new project coming up—neuromorphic chip development. The core algorithm's stuck. Take the lead on it under my name. Blind those old fossils."

Neuromorphic chips.

Lucinda raised an eyebrow. Her fingertips tapped lightly on her knee. A faint spark of interest flickered in her eyes.

"Alright." She replied. "I'll take it."

Over the next few days, Lucinda threw herself fully into daily life at the institute.

Following Royce's instructions, she joined the institute's most critical project—neuromorphic chip development.

The project was led by Royce himself. Every member of the team was a celebrated young talent with international recognition.

"This dataset needs to be repackaged."

In the lab, Lucinda's fingers flew across the keyboard.

Her expression was calm. She didn't even lift her head as she tossed over a piece of code.

A fellow researcher took it nervously. One glance, and he gasped audibly.

The logic deadlock they'd been stuck on for half a month—she'd cracked it in under thirty minutes using an elegantly simplified algorithm.

Talent. Pure, undeniable talent.

In the face of Lucinda's research logic, everyone else on the team was completely outclassed.

Except for one person.

Dahlia was also on the team.

To prove herself to her parents and secure her place at the institute, she was pushing herself to the limit.

Every day, she was the first to arrive at the lab and the last to leave.

In just a few days, she'd filled three thick notebooks with experimental notes—page after page, written with painstaking effort.

But she realized, no matter how hard she worked, no matter how much she sacrificed, she would never catch up to Lucinda's shadow.