Chapter 1

My roommate, Megan Williams, stole the thesis I had spent 187 days writing and revising through twenty-seven drafts for my grad school recommendation.

She put her own name on it and submitted it to the college, taking my recommendation spot and deleting every original file from my computer.

When I confronted her, she dropped to the floor and started crying. She said I had no right to slander her when I failed to get recommended for grad school.

Then she posted a long message in the class group chat, claiming I had plagiarized and had a messy private life.

Hundreds of messages flooded in, all of them scolding me.

I went to the student counselor. He simply sighed and said, "You're classmates. Let it go."

Megan became emboldened after that. She stole the materials I prepared for the competition and ripped up my application form. She smiled as she said, "No matter how hard you try, it won't matter."

I stared at her without saying a word. What she did not know was that I had left the model and drafts on my desk on purpose.

She took them as expected.

Three days later, she pranced through the dorm with the first prize certificate from the university's Outstanding Achievement Awards.

"Nelly, look. This is what real talent looks like."

I only smiled and said nothing.

Because that first prize would be what landed her on the disciplinary list.

Chapter 1

"Did you steal my thesis?"

Megan froze before slumping to the floor, landing hard on her backside. Tears streamed down her face as she sobbed. "That's crossing the line, Nelly Sullivan! You can't slander me like this just because you didn't get recommended for grad school!"

People from the next dorm rooms poked their heads out, and more people gathered around. She sobbed as if she had suffered the greatest injustice in the world.

I stood there, unable to say a word.

In everyone else's eyes, I was just a lunatic who had lost her grad school recommendation and was jealous of her roommate.

Someone helped Megan up. As she walked past me, she lowered her voice and said, "You have no proof. What can you do?"

Half an hour later, the class group chat blew up.

She posted a three-thousand-word message, along with a photo of herself sitting on the floor crying. She accused me of cheating on exams, having a messy private life, and not deserving a grad school recommendation.

Hundreds of messages poured in, all of them blaming me.

I scrolled through them all, my fingers going cold.

I went to Fred, the student counselor, but all he did was sigh after hearing everything. "Nelly, Megan's family isn't well off. This recommendation means a lot to her. You have no proof, and making this any bigger won't help anyone. You're all classmates, so just let it go and try again next year."

Try again next year.

Those four words wiped out all my hard work.

When I returned to the dorm, Megan was holding the grad school recommendation letter and tossed it onto my desk on purpose. "What was the point of working so hard for three years? In the end, the spot is still mine."

Then, she picked up the coffee on my desk, tilted it, and spilled the whole cup on my pants. "Oops. My hand slipped."

She turned and walked away, her steps light.

Meanwhile, I lowered my head and watched the coffee stain spread. Then, I looked up and smiled.

The video camera in the corner of my desk was blinking red.

For three months, every frame it had recorded had been waiting for just the right moment.

Megan, you thought you had won, but the game has just begun.

After Megan got the grad school recommendation, she became a completely different person. No, it would be more accurate to say she finally showed her true colors.

Every day, she made calls in the dorm room on loudspeaker, loud enough for the whole floor to hear. "Honestly, getting the recommendation wasn't hard at all. I got in without having to put much effort into it. Of course, a bookworm like Nelly could never beat me."

Even with headphones on, I heard every word.

But things got even worse.

The National Innovation Contest's study materials I had spent half a year organizing disappeared from my desk. A few days later, I saw the stack on Megan's bookshelf with her name written across the cover in marker.

Chapter 2

"These are my materials." I pulled the stack of papers out from Megan's bookshelf, confronting her at the same time.

She did not even look up. "You can't use them anymore, so I'm using them for you. You didn't get the recommendation anyway, so it would be a waste if we just left it there."

My fingers tightened around the papers, but I said nothing.

But what truly crossed the line for me was the day I came back to the dorm early.

The door was unlocked, and Megan was sitting in my chair as she went through my hard drive. My computer was switched on, and the screen showed the academic materials for another project. She was taking screenshots, page by page.

"What are you doing?" I stood in the doorway, my voice cold.

She lazily spun the chair around. "Just looking for some materials. Why are you so uptight?"

Then, she stood up and walked to my desk, tearing my dream university poster off the wall. She tore the poster in half, throwing it on the floor and stepping on it.

I had looked at it every night before going to sleep for three years…

"You think you deserve to go to this school?" She sneered.

I stared at the torn poster, and I could feel something inside of me crack.

That night, I pulled screenshots from the surveillance footage of Megan secretly using my meal card and hiding my math competition application form. After blocking out the private information, I posted them in the class group chat and demanded that she apologize and return everything within three days, or I would call the police.

After the message went out, the chat stayed silent for a moment.

Then, a message popped up.

Lily Smith, the department's admin, tagged me in the group: [@NellySullivan, you're slandering another student in the chat, and it's ruining the atmosphere in the college. Delete this immediately and make a public apology.]

I stared at the screen, sure I had read it wrong.

Then Megan sent me a private message. It was a string of smug reaction images, followed by one line: [My cousin works in the department. Do you really think you can beat me?]

I did not reply.

The next morning, I returned to the dorm and found that three months of research materials for the National Innovation Contest, which I had locked inside my drawer, were gone. I searched the whole dorm and finally found them in the hallway trash can. Every page had been torn to pieces.

Dawn Lynch, another of my dorm mates, saw me crouching there picking up the scraps. She sighed and said, "Megan threw them out this morning. She tore them up pretty thoroughly."

I crouched on the floor and picked them up, piece by piece.

Then, my phone suddenly vibrated.

I looked down. It was an email from the Patent Office. The utility model patent I had spent half a year applying for had passed preliminary review, and the official certificate would be issued within three days.

Holding my phone, I crouched in front of the shredded paper and laughed.

Megan came out of the dorm still in her slippers. As she passed by the trash can, she stepped on the scraps on purpose. "Oh? Those were your prep materials for the contest? I thought they were just useless scrap paper, so I threw them out for you. No need to thank me."

I gathered the scraps and stood up before stuffing them all into a trash bag. Then I looked up at her. For the first time, I did not look away. "Megan, every piece of paper you stepped on will become evidence against you."

She paused, then laughed. "Trying to scare me? Is that all you can do?"

I did not argue.

Because she would know that not a word I said was a joke three days later.

On the day of the National Innovation Contest's defense segment for the university level, I realized I had left the USB drive with my slides in the dorm.

I called my roommate and asked her to bring it over. The other end went quiet for two seconds. "Megan already went to the venue with the drive. She said it was hers."

My heart sank.

By the time I reached the lecture room where the defense was taking place, Megan was already onstage. My presentation was projected clearly on the screen, and the first slide read, "Project lead, Megan Williams."

Chapter 3

She presented the project without pause.

The data analysis and algorithm I had built through sleepless nights came out of her mouth like lines she had memorized. She stumbled through it yet somehow sounded completely confident.

Suddenly, a professor on the panel interrupted her. "What was the sample size for this data? Which cities did your research cover?"

Megan froze. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. "Well... That data was... Someone else on our team handled it. I didn't memorize it."

"Then who is the actual lead? How much do you actually know about this project?"

Megan's face turned red. She suddenly pointed at me in the back row. "Nelly helped me make the defense presentation. She didn't hand everything over clearly, so I..."

The whole room went silent as everyone looked at me.

I stood up and walked onto the stage, pushing Megan aside. Then, I picked up the microphone. "Sirs and madams, I am Nelly Sullivan, the actual lead of this project. I apologize for this situation. I will now present the full project myself."

For the next twenty minutes, I didn't look at my notes at all as I presented everything from the project background, experimental design, data collection, and analysis process to the improvement plan. I explained everything clearly, one by one.

For every question the judges asked, I could give the precise source of data, down to the decimal point.

When I finished, a few students in the audience quietly applauded. Meanwhile, Megan stood at the side of the stage, her face livid.

After the defense ended, Fred came to see us. He asked Megan why she could not answer questions about the data if she were the lead.

Megan's eyes turned red.

"I meant well and wanted to help Nelly out a little. Nelly made the presentation, and I helped her present it, but she didn't hand over the later data clearly... Nelly, I was just trying to help you. Please don't misunderstand me."

She was twisting the truth again.

I ignored her and left the lecture room.

Back at the dorm, I picked up a package from the delivery room. When I opened it, I found the filing receipt for the patent, the patent application publication, and a 3D-printed prototype model.

Megan happened to come back to the dorm at the same time too. When she saw the things on my desk, her eyes shifted.

I laid out the model, drafts, and filing receipt neatly across my desk, one by one. Then I picked up my bag, walked to the door, and glanced back at her.

Her eyes were fixed on my desk.

I closed the door behind me. I did not lock it.

When I got downstairs, I looked up at the lit window on the third floor.

The bait was set. Now, all I had to do was wait for her to bite.

But something else happened that was beyond my expectations.

When Megan picked up the model, her phone rang. She answered in a very low voice, "Hello? Yeah, I have it now."

The light in that window on the third floor suddenly went out.

-

On the day of the announcement of the university's Outstanding Achievement Awards, Megan was the third person to go onstage.

I would never forget what she was holding. My patent model, the 3D-printed smart-sorting bin.

She stood onstage with a bright smile and spoke into the microphone. "I spent a full year developing this patent independently. I completed everything myself, from design to modeling."

Applause rose from the audience.

The judges gave their scores, and she won first prize. The host announced that she had secured a guaranteed spot in the national round.

Chapter 4

When Megan received the award, she turned toward the audience on purpose and raised the trophy, giving it a small shake. Her eyes fixed on me, and her mouth silently formed the words, "See that?"

I sat in the third row and looked at her.

Then I stood and pointed at Megan.

The whole venue fell silent as Megan's smile froze.

"I have something to say," I said. Then, I walked onto the stage and took out a folder from my bag, projecting its contents onto the screen, one page at a time.

The first page was the patent filing receipt. The application date was three months before the "one year ago" Megan had claimed. Applicant: Nelly Sullivan.

The second page showed seventeen versions of the design drafts. From the first sketch drawn by hand to the seventeenth CAD engineering drawing, every version had a timestamp and my signature.

The third page showed screenshots from the full video of the design process. In the screenshots, my hand drew line after line in the modeling software, and the timestamp in the corner was clear as day.

The final page was an enlarged view of the Patent Office search page. Applicant: Nelly Sullivan. Application status: preliminary review passed.

The whole venue lit up with chatter.

"Holy, it really is Nelly's patent..."

"But Megan just stood up there and said she spent a year developing it herself?"

"She plagiarized it, didn't she?"

The discussion from the audience grew louder. Everyone who had joined Megan in attacking me in the past was silent now.

Megan stood onstage and stubbornly said, "What makes you say it's yours? Your patent is completely different from mine."

"Different?" I laughed and took my phone out of my pocket. "Then what about this?"

I opened a recording and pressed play.

Megan's voice came from the dorm. "Hey, the model on your desk is pretty interesting. I'm going to take it and have a look."

Then another voice spoke. "Don't touch it. That's my patent model."

Megan laughed in the recording. "I'm just looking at it. It's not like I'll break it."

Then came the sound of a door closing.

"I also have the footage of the security camera from the dorm hallway. Do you want to see when you take this model from my desk?"

I looked at Megan. My voice was not loud, but every word hit home.

Megan opened her mouth, trying to say something, but the discussion below had become louder and louder.

Just then, the man in the middle of the panel stood, and everyone turned to him.

He was Professor Grant Williams, the head judge of the National Innovation Contest and one of the experts who went through the preliminary review for my patent three months earlier.

He frowned at the public patent application on the screen and pushed up his glasses. "This project... I remember it. When the Patent Office conducted the preliminary review, I was one of the experts reviewing the project."

Professor Grant picked up the microphone, and the whole venue went quiet. He looked at me, then at Megan, and spoke slowly. "But I have seen an earlier version of this patent."

The whole venue went dead silent.

My heart dropped.

An earlier version? That was impossible. I was the first applicant.

Megan suddenly raised her head, a cold smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. She turned toward the judging panel and bowed. "Thank you, Professor Grant. That earlier version was the one I submitted three months ago."