Chapter 196 The Truth Surfaces
After investigating Molly's background, Rat couldn't find anything she had in common with Sophia. So he decided to change his approach and investigate from the opposite direction.
He looked into Sophia's past.
And this search actually uncovered some buried history.
Sophia glanced at the sleeping children, quietly got up, and went to the study with her phone.
She called Rat.
Rat got straight to the point, "Sophia, did you donate money to charity a lot when you were young?"
As a child, Sophia was the beloved daughter of the Johnson family.
Back then, just the gifts from her elders were worth millions of dollars every year.
Once, she went with her mother to visit sponsored children in a mountain area. The poverty there deeply shocked her, so she decided to use her allowance to help excellent students who couldn't afford school.
In just three or four years, she donated over ten million dollars.
Some of this money went to helping poor students, some to buying desks and books for schools, and some to fixing up run-down school buildings.
Every year before winter break, she would receive photos from the schools, showing the smiling faces of the children she helped.
Until later, when the Johnson Group ran into problems, Sophia's financial situation took a nosedive.
For practical reasons, she was forced to stop the ongoing long-term support.
From her perspective at the time, there was nothing wrong with this—help others when you have money, take care of yourself when you don't, and don't burden your family.
About stopping the funding, she specifically asked her mother to explain the situation to the school principals. The feedback she received was understanding. Plus, her mother helped connect those schools with other charitable organizations, passing along the list of people who needed help.
Later, when the Johnson family went completely bankrupt, she followed Mira to Rain Village. Just surviving was hard enough, so she had no energy to follow up on what happened after.
Facing Rat's questions, Sophia briefly recounted this history.
"That makes sense. Sophia, do you remember a girl named 'Lilith Nguyen'?"
Lilith Nguyen?
Sophia pulled this name from her distant memories, her eyes flickering slightly.
Of course, she remembered.
Back then, when she saw teenage Lilith with one sister on her back, another hanging from her chest, still having to bend over working in the fields cutting grass for pigs—that scene had a huge impact on her.
It was because of seeing Lilith that Sophia decided to donate her money to help more girls like her who wanted to study.
At the time, Sophia thought Lilith was a late student and took the initiative to give her a new backpack and school supplies.
Later, through the village chief, Sophia learned her story.
Lilith was fifteen that year, should have been in ninth grade, but had dropped out because of family reasons.
Her mother was pregnant and couldn't move easily, so all the heavy work fell on Lilith, and she also had to take care of two young sisters.
Sophia was nine that year, but fifteen-year-old Lilith didn't look much taller than her—she was skin and bones, severely malnourished.
The village chief said Lilith's grades had always been first in the whole school, and she desperately wanted to study.
Unfortunately, she had a father who favored sons over daughters and was obsessed with having a boy.
To have a son, her parents had already given away two daughters. While shocked, Sophia felt deep sympathy for Lilith.
So she provided targeted support for Lilith.
At first, Lilith's father didn't agree.
To let Lilith continue school, Sophia promised that, besides tuition, she would give her father an extra three thousand dollars monthly as "lost work compensation."
For a poor family with an annual income under twenty thousand dollars, this was definitely a huge sum.
Sophia also set a rule: if Lilith was forced to drop out midway, the money would stop immediately.
For the money's sake, her father finally agreed.
In the end, Lilith got to return to school as she wished, living at school during the week and only going home on weekends.
For the next few years, Sophia received thank-you letters from Lilith every birthday. Right before the Johnson family went bankrupt, Sophia specifically left ten thousand dollars for Lilith.
Lilith was about to take the SAT then, and that ten thousand dollars was enough to cover her first year of college tuition and part of her living expenses.
Once Lilith got into college and left her birth family, she could completely support herself through work-study.
Sophia felt she had done more than enough with those arrangements.
Now, holding the phone, she asked in a low voice, "You suspect Molly is Lilith?"
"I can't be a hundred percent sure yet," Rat answered. "Nguyenville is deep in the mountains, very isolated. Back then, the payments were all handled by the principal going to the county to get cash and deliver it—not many electronic records were kept."
"But my gut tells me they're the same person. Don't worry, I've already sent people to Nguyenville to investigate on the ground. We'll be able to confirm her identity soon."
"Also, I found an interesting piece of information: the records show Lilith didn't get into college."
Sophia was lost in thoughts, "OK, thanks for your hard work."
After hanging up, she opened the message Francis had sent.
[Found the person behind the scenes who encouraged Tammy to go after you. Most likely your ex-husband's female secretary.]
In other words, Molly.
Looking at this message, Sophia's mood couldn't settle for a long time.
Her support of Lilith had contained almost all the kindness from her youth.
But now the facts told her that the girl she had tried so hard to help was now paying people to viciously attack her online.
A cold, self-mocking smile appeared at the corner of Sophia's mouth.
Turns out her soft-heartedness as a young girl hadn't nurtured a flower of gratitude, but instead raised a poisonous blade pointed at herself.
How ironic, how ridiculous, and how disgusting!
On the other side.
Learning that strangers had gone to Nguyenville to investigate, Molly fell into extreme panic.
Even though she had changed her name and made all the disguises, she was still afraid that her poor, birth family would be exposed.
If it were other troubles, she might be able to ask Quinn for help. But about her background specifically, she absolutely didn't dare let him know even a bit.
Though Quinn was lustful, someone in his high position had an almost pathological obsession with the backgrounds of people around him.
The reason he accepted her seduction in the first place was that he valued her clean family background and simple history.
Once this extremely proud man found out about her shameful past in Nguyenville—that family that favored sons over daughters, that bad name—he wouldn't even need anyone else to act. He would clean her out, like throwing away trash, completely eliminating this "stain."
Molly paced anxiously back and forth in the bathroom.
Why would someone investigate Nguyenville?
Could Sophia have noticed something?
That hypocritical woman, why couldn't she just die quietly!
Why were there always people helping her?
No! She had to expose Sophia's true face and make everyone despise her!
Molly stared hard at herself in the mirror, intense hatred burning from her eyes.
Only if Sophia died could it make up for the "harm" done to her back then!
Sophia deserved to die a thousand deaths!