In the meantime, Jun Country had been bustling with gossip about their latest trending topic: Qiao Ximin. After her one-night stand in the hotel had been photographed by the paparazzi, Qiao Ximin had become the hottest topic of discussion in Jingdu.

For the elites of Jingdu, the name Qiao Ximin had become a popular joke for all the socialites overnight.

She had worked hard to establish her image as a daughter of the big four wealthiest families, yet now all of her hard work had burst like bubbles in one night. What she had instead were hoards of paparazzi and media that clogged the entrance of Qiao Manor. Qiao Ximin was afraid to even take a step out of her house.

During this deepest winter, the feud between the Han family and the Qiao family had continued to be the subject of heated discussions for the public in Jingdu. It was the entertainment of the century to watch the two families battle, and the public was kept on the edges of their seats for what would happen next.

And the news delivered. It was almost as if the executives of the newsrooms had agreed to begin a media slander against the Qiao family with the constant feed of scandals about them. No matter what price the Qiao family was willing to pay to silence this noise, the media seemed to ignore their attempts.

Qiao Ximin had assumed that Han Yaotian had had a part in the sudden media attention, but even the Han family had been severely damaged by the media. She wondered if all this attention of the media had been an orchestrated move by a third party.

After all, the Qiao family had recently joined the big four wealthiest families. It was no wonder that a jealous third party would have wanted to bring down their reputation. Qiao Ximin was worried about whether this was also a warning from the other three families to keep the Qiao family in check. Regardless, she didn’t have the faintest idea who could be manipulating this from behind the scenes.

The only thing about this ordeal that stood out as strange was that she was the only target of the media slander. Liang Xinyi and Han Zhongteng had been caught on that day as well, yet the media did not utter a single word about the two. Liang Xinyi had walked away with the least reputation damage.

The more Qiao Ximin thought about how she was the one being hounded by the public, but Liang Xinyi, who had drugged her, was not, the more the anger inside of her grew.

She wondered where Liang Xinyi found the nerve to keep her pride after what had transpired. She wondered how Liang Xinyi had found a footing, when she had been left in shambles.

She was not one to mess with, Qiao Ximin thought. She would not be the one who Liang Xinyi had found it so easy to mess with.

“Miss, a reporter outside asked me to give you this. He said these might be of some help to you…”

One of their servants, who had returned from the grocery store, had approached her with a brown envelope. She seemed to have gotten it while she was on her way back inside the manor.

“What’s this?” Qiao Ximin looked up. The word help had gotten her attention, and she could not help but reach out for the envelope.

She was out of her depth and could not find a way out of the current situation. The Han family had made several calls to her father as well to discuss the marriage between the two families.

The media had blown a simple one-night stand out of all proportion. Not only was this event a huge stain on her reputation, but now Qiao Ximin had no choice but to consider a marriage with a man she did not love for the sake of her family’s reputation.

The envelope crinkled as she opened the flap and retrieved a few images. To say the images were scandalous would have been an understatement. Every one of them depicted three men and one woman naked in various obscene poses. The images were enough to bring a flush to Qiao Ximin’s face.

Once she got a closer look at the people in the images, her eyes widened in shock. She abruptly turned to the servant who had given her the envelope and questioned her anxiously, “Where is the reporter now?”

“S…still at the front door…”

“Bring him in by the side door. I need to talk to him!”

The woman in the pictures was none other than Liang Xinyi. Qiao Ximin was aware that these pictures had not been sent to her for her to observe and appreciate the composition of the photos.

For the man to have obtained these photographs from that night, he had clearly spent sufficient time in the hotel. This meant that he would have had other photos that were important, such as images of her and Han Yaotian that he could sell to the media.

The reporter was brought into the house by the servant, and Qiao Ximin waited for him on the couch. Even in her state of national embarrassment, she held her head high and maintained the haughtiness of the daughter of the Qiao family.

‘Miss Qiao!” Reporter Liu walked up to her, his hands still tucked into the pockets of his trench coat. He paused to study the woman in front of him and put on a polite smile.

“I’ve seen the pictures. What else do you have?”

“What does Miss Qiao mean by that?”

“You must be a patient man to be able to obtain these photographs. I was there too, you know? Surely you caught some of me too? Now that I’ve invited you in, let’s not go round in circles but talk plainly. What do you want?”