The next morning, I arrived at the company at eight.
Lucas Lu was already waiting outside my office.
He held two coffees.
I walked past him.
“Director Lu, the quarterly meeting starts at nine.”
“Alma.”
I stopped.
He placed one coffee on my desk.
“I want to talk about six years ago.”
“I don’t.”
His expression tightened.
“I owe you an apology.”
“You owed eighteen-year-old Alma an apology.”
I opened my laptop.
“I’m twenty-four now. She isn’t here anymore.”
He remained standing.
“I didn’t know what happened after you left.”
“Exactly.”
“I tried to find you.”
“And?”
“Your number was disconnected. Your records were transferred. Your old landlord said you’d moved.”
I looked up.
“Lucas, do you expect points for looking after everything was over?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“I expect nothing.”
That surprised me.
He placed a thin folder on my desk.
“But you should have this.”
I didn’t touch it.
“What is it?”
“The original plagiarism investigation.”
My fingers stopped.
“Why do you have it?”
“Because after Nicole confessed, I demanded the school reopen the case.”
He swallowed.
“They cleared your name privately.”
“Privately?”
“Yes.”
I laughed.
Of course.
They had accused me publicly.
Humiliated me publicly.
Destroyed my reputation publicly.
And corrected it privately.
“How generous.”
Lucas lowered his eyes.
“I asked them to make a public announcement.”
“They didn’t.”
“No.”
“Then nothing changed.”
“It should have.”
“But it didn’t.”
I pushed the folder back.
“Keep it.”
At nine, Lucas became Director Lu again.
Cold.
Precise.
Professional.
He presented the company’s restructuring plan while I took notes with everyone else.
For almost two hours, neither of us acknowledged the conversation.
Then the final slide appeared.
Creative Strategy Department — Acting Lead: Alma Liang.
I looked up.
My colleagues immediately congratulated me.
I didn’t.
Afterward, I entered Lucas’s office and closed the door.
“Remove my name.”
He frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I earned my promotions without you.”
“This has nothing to do with our past.”
“Then prove it.”
“How?”
“Put me through the same review process as everyone else.”
His expression changed.
“Alma, your performance numbers are the highest in the department.”
“Excellent.”
I placed the file on his desk.
“Then the panel should have no difficulty selecting me.”
For several seconds, he simply stared at me.
Then he nodded.
“Fine.”
A week later, the review panel selected me unanimously.
That mattered.
Not because I needed Lucas’s approval.
Because I didn’t.
Nicole Ni appeared three weeks later.
I hadn’t seen her in six years.
She entered our lobby wearing sunglasses and carrying an expensive handbag.
The receptionist called me.
“Director Liang, someone says she’s an old classmate.”
When I walked downstairs, Nicole smiled.
“Alma.”
I stopped several feet away.
“What do you want?”
Her smile weakened.
“I heard Lucas became your director.”
“And?”
“I thought you should know something before he tells you his version.”
I almost walked away.
Then she said:
“The anonymous scholarship complaint wasn’t mine.”
I stopped.
Nicole slowly removed her sunglasses.
“I plagiarized your work.”
“At least we agree on something.”
“I admitted it.”
“After I left.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
She lowered her head.
“I know.”
For once, Nicole didn’t defend herself.
That made listening easier.
She opened her bag and removed an old envelope.
“I kept this because I was afraid someone would blame everything on me one day.”
Inside were photocopies of emails.
The plagiarism accusation had been sent from Nicole’s school account.
But the complaint to the national arts program had been different.
Anonymous.
Detailed.
It contained information very few people knew.
My application number.
My mother’s financial information.
Even excerpts from the personal essay I had submitted.
I looked at Nicole.
“How did anyone get this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why are you showing me now?”
“Because Lucas started investigating again.”
Of course.
My jaw tightened.
“I didn’t ask him to.”
“I know.”
Nicole hesitated.
“But whoever filed that complaint also contacted me before I accused you.”
My breathing slowed.
“What did they say?”
She handed me another page.
One sentence had been printed at the top:
If Alma wins, everyone will eventually discover where her work really came from.
Below it were photographs of preliminary sketches from my project.
My sketches.
Taken inside my dorm room.
Before I submitted them.
Someone had been inside.
Someone had photographed my work.
Then someone had given Nicole enough material to convince her she could claim it.
The room suddenly felt colder.
“Who had access to our dorm?”
Nicole looked uncomfortable.
“More people than you think.”
I went directly upstairs.
Lucas was in a meeting.
I opened the door anyway.
“Everyone out.”
Six executives stared at me.
Lucas looked at my face.
Then he closed his laptop.
“Ten-minute break.”
When we were alone, I placed Nicole’s documents in front of him.
“You contacted her?”
“Yes.”
“After I specifically told you the past was over?”
“I wasn’t investigating our relationship.”
“Then what?”
“Your scholarship.”
I stared at him.
His voice lowered.
“The timeline never made sense.”
He opened a drawer.
There were more documents inside.
A lot more.
“What is all this?”
“Everything I collected after you transferred.”
I froze.
“You kept investigating?”
“For two years.”
“Why?”
His eyes met mine.
“Because I discovered Nicole hadn’t acted alone.”
I said nothing.
Lucas took out an old yearbook photograph.
There were seven students in it.
Nicole.
Lucas.
Me.
Several classmates.
And our arts instructor, Professor Daniel Wang.
Lucas tapped the instructor’s face.
“He wrote your recommendation letter.”
“I know.”
“He also served as an external consultant for the national program.”
My stomach tightened.
“So?”
“So he had access to your application.”
I shook my head.
“Professor Wang supported me.”
“At first.”
Lucas opened another document.
“Until he learned who your father was.”
I went completely still.
“My father?”
I rarely spoke about him.
My parents separated when I was little.
He disappeared from our lives soon afterward.
My mother raised me alone.
“What does he have to do with this?”
Lucas pushed an old newspaper clipping toward me.
A photograph showed Professor Wang standing beside a younger man.
I recognized that man immediately.
My father.
“They worked together.”
Lucas said.
“Your father was an illustrator.”
“I know.”
“But did you know Professor Wang was once his business partner?”
No.
I hadn’t.
Lucas continued.
“They developed a visual-design project together.”
“What happened?”
“Your father left.”
“And?”
“Professor Wang built his early career using that project.”
I stared at him.
“Are you saying he plagiarized my father?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer mattered.
Lucas wasn’t making accusations without evidence anymore.
Six years had apparently taught him something.
“But I found this.”
He gave me a copyright registration.
My father’s name appeared first.
Professor Wang’s second.
Then another version registered eighteen months later.
Only Professor Wang remained.
My throat tightened.
“Why would that affect my scholarship?”
“Because your winning project used a visual technique remarkably similar to your father’s original work.”
I understood.
“If I entered the national program…”
“Experts might compare them.”
“And discover Professor Wang’s career wasn’t entirely his.”
Lucas nodded.
Silence filled the office.
Suddenly, the scholarship complaint looked different.
Maybe destroying my reputation had never been about Nicole.
Maybe Nicole had simply been useful.
Just like Lucas had been useful when he believed his girlfriend.
That evening, I called my mother.
“Do you remember Professor Wang?”
Silence.
Too long.
“Mom?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Did he know Dad?”
Another silence.
Then she said quietly:
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wanted that part of our life finished.”
“Did Professor Wang know who I was when I entered his class?”
“Yes.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“You knew?”
“He promised me he would never involve you.”
I stood.
“Involve me in what?”
My mother didn’t answer directly.
Instead, she said:
“Alma, come home this weekend.”
“Tell me now.”
“No.”
“Mom.”
“Not over the phone.”
I had never heard that tone from her before.
Fear.
Six years earlier, I had thought my mother became ill simply because the rumors surrounding me had overwhelmed her.
Now I wasn’t sure.
“Mom, what happened after the school called you?”
She became silent again.
Then:
“Professor Wang came to our house.”
My heart dropped.
“When?”
“The night before we left the city.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted something your father had left behind.”
I drove home Friday evening.
Lucas offered to come.
I refused.
This wasn’t his investigation anymore.
It was mine.
My mother was waiting at the kitchen table.
In front of her sat an old metal box.
I had seen it throughout childhood.
She had always said it contained tax documents.
She unlocked it.
Inside were dozens of drawings.
Contracts.
Letters.
And one sealed envelope with my name.
My handwriting wasn’t on it.
My father’s was.
For Alma, when she is ready.
My mother pushed it toward me.
“He asked me never to give you this unless Professor Wang came looking for it.”
I stared at her.
“Dad?”
She nodded.
I opened the envelope.
There was no emotional farewell.
No explanation for abandoning us.
Only a legal document.
A copyright assignment.
My father had transferred ownership of his original visual system to me when I was six years old.
Professor Wang had never owned it outright.
And apparently, he knew.
At the bottom was a handwritten note:
If Daniel ever tries to claim this work as his alone, the original archive is not with me.
I turned the page.
There was an address.
Not our old house.
Not a bank.
A storage facility.
My mother whispered:
“Your father disappeared two weeks after writing that.”
I looked up.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“He stopped contacting everyone.”
“You told me he abandoned us.”
“I thought he had.”
She looked toward the box.
“Until six years ago.”
My heart began pounding.
“What happened six years ago?”
“The night Professor Wang came here, he said something.”
“What?”
My mother looked directly at me.
“He said your father was alive.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Before I could speak, my phone vibrated.
Lucas.
I nearly rejected the call.
Then I saw his message.
Alma, don’t contact Professor Wang. I found the person who submitted the anonymous complaint.
A second message arrived.
It wasn’t Nicole.
Then a third.
And it wasn’t Professor Wang.
I stared at the screen.
My mother saw my expression.
“What?”
I couldn’t answer.
Because Lucas had attached the recovered registration record from the computer used to send the complaint.
The device had belonged to someone whose name I hadn’t seen in six years.
Someone who had comforted me after the accusation.
Someone who had helped my mother pack our belongings.
Someone who knew every detail of my scholarship application because I had trusted her enough to let her proofread it.
My former dormmate.
Nicole’s best friend.
And the girl Lucas had dated before Nicole.
The same woman who had vanished from our lives immediately after I transferred.
Under the record, Lucas had written one final sentence:
Alma, I found her—and she says your father paid her to make sure you never entered that program.
