Chapter 3

The next morning, before I even entered the classroom, someone dumped a bucket of soy milk all over me at the entrance of the teaching building.

"Oops, sorry! My bad!" The boy who threw the cup laughed and walked away.

I stood there, soaked from head to toe, the soy milk dripping from my hair onto my uniform, leaving sticky yellow stains on the white collar.

I stood frozen, my face burning with shame.

Olivia walked up to me and stood in front of me, her voice soft:

"Rachel, you can't keep making everyone think you're putting on a pity show to clear your name. You'll really be misunderstood this way."

I finally snapped, my voice hoarse and trembling: "Clear my name? When your dad ruined my face, did I even ask him to take responsibility?"

She blinked: "What are you talking about? Didn't you voluntarily sign up for the trial? You signed the contract yourself."

"Didn't you say 'I can endure pain for beauty'? How come now that you're disfigured, you want to blame others?"

She paused, then lowered her voice: "Rachel, I advise you not to say anything rash. The statute of limitations on my dad's case has passed. If you really make a big fuss, it'll only make your mom's work situation more difficult."

"Also," she smiled, "do you have any evidence for what you're saying now?"

I was stunned.

She wasn't wrong. I had no evidence.

The trial contract I signed back then was taken away, and my mom had thrown away the copy as waste paper.

I was only a freshman then, and after being disfigured, I only knew how to cry. I had no idea what to keep as evidence.

I couldn't even remember clearly what I had signed.

And now, she stood brazenly in front of me, saying: "Without evidence, anything you say is just slander."

My whole body went cold, my teeth chattering.

She turned and walked into the classroom with a smile. Classmates crowded around her, offering breakfast, hot water bottles, pink face masks, saying:

"Olivia, you're really too kind."

"Don't let her get to you, she's just trying to ride your coattails."

"Don't worry, we all support you getting plastic surgery to live your best life. You deserve better."

And I, like a madwoman, was nailed to the corridor.

My vision started to blur.

That night, I couldn't sleep.

Not because I had been doused with soy milk during the day, not because my mother was still lying in the hospital on an IV drip, but because Olivia had posted a new article on the school's public account:

"The Pursuit of Beauty is Never a Sin"

She said she was a "patient with congenital facial structure imbalance" and had developed an eating disorder in middle school due to her facial issues.

She said she could only fall asleep at 4 AM because "appearance anxiety has seeped into my bones."

Finally, she wrote:

"Some people think I don't deserve plastic surgery, that this is all an act. But I just want to stop being scared of my reflection in the mirror.

I hope the next time I sit on the operating table, I'll wake up with a smile."

There were over a thousand comments below, all praising her for being "brave," "real," and "beautifully powerful."

As for me, after being scolded for three whole days, I didn't even have a single comment defending me.

This donation storm, wrapped in the guise of "beauty," had already become one-sided in public opinion.

I sat on a long bench in the hospital corridor, took out my phone, and opened the official website of that plastic surgery hospital.

The procedure Olivia said she wanted was the hospital's newly launched "Full Face Dynamic 3D Fusion Surgery." The introduction read: "Jointly developed by Shaw Hospital and overseas experts" and "Creating an Asian-adapted facial proportion model."

I recognized it immediately. This was the same procedure the doctor had mentioned to me before my double eyelid surgery.

Fighting back tears, I dialed the consumer protection hotline and the city's medical regulatory hotline.

I reported the hospital's name, saying they exaggerated their advertising, failed to disclose experimental procedures, and refused to provide complete medical records after disfiguring me.

The person on the other end said they would file the complaint for investigation.

After hanging up, for the first time, I felt a tiny bit of victory, no matter how small.

But this small sense of victory turned into hell the next morning.

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