Chapter 432: A Huge Sucker

Chapter 432: Chapter 432: A Huge Sucker

In the end, Hector Donovan couldn’t hold it in. He bolted upright with a cry of alarm, his eyes meeting the shocked gaze of the young cameraman nearby.

Hector Donovan: "..."

The cameraman: "..."

The scene was a bit dramatic. Hector Donovan glanced at the camera in the man’s hands, and a sudden idea struck him. He pulled up the production team’s live stream.

When he saw the stream showing him just sitting there with his head down, staring at his phone, and the bullet comments that hadn’t yet been hidden—accusing his sister of using metaphysics as a gimmick and claiming the show had scripted everything to hype her up—his brow furrowed slightly.

He immediately put on an act—three parts concealment, three parts fury, and four parts genuine emotion—and started arguing with the viewers through his phone screen.

"What do you mean, ’I’ve never heard of anything as ridiculous as using word divination to find a lost key. It’s obviously a scripted show promoting a favored cast member. Everything from the tasks to the extras looks fake.’ Hey, viewer, if you’re that ignorant, you should watch more TV. If your family’s too poor to own one, go ask to watch your neighbor’s. I’m sure they won’t mind, seeing as you’re so pitiful.

It’s a big world out there. You should get out and see it more. It’ll do you good. Otherwise, you’ll be like a frog in a well, thinking that anything you haven’t seen doesn’t exist. Have you personally seen a volcano erupt? An aurora flash across the sky? A meteor fall? Mars collide with Earth? Can you say those things don’t exist? Ignorance isn’t a crime, but being ignorant, self-righteous, and smug about it is just plain wrong."

"And to this viewer, what do you mean, ’spreading feudal superstitions’? By your logic, praying to gods and honoring ancestors are also feudal superstitions. Why don’t you go tell your parents and elders to stop observing ancestral memorial days? Just let your ancestors fend for themselves.

’Start with yourself to reject feudal superstitions.’ How enlightened. How inspirational. Let’s see if your parents team up to give you a beatdown. Let’s see if your ancestors climb out of their urns in the middle of the night to come find you..."

"And another thing, to this viewer..."

Just like that, in front of the live stream camera, Hector Donovan started taking on the netizens and paid trolls who were questioning Arabella Donovan. His mouth ran a mile a minute without a break, giving him the air of a man trying to single-handedly battle an army of haters, holding the line against a thousand enemies.

Hector Donovan’s fans: "..." ’This feeling is so familiar. One look and I know... that’s absolutely my troublesome, death-of-me internet husband!’

Thanks to Hector Donovan’s brilliant move, the buzz around their live stream shot up again like a rocket.

For a moment, everyone’s attention was fixed on the exciting topic of him furiously arguing with the audience. Absolutely no one bothered to look into whether his initial cry of alarm had another cause.

Half an hour had passed by the time Hector Donovan had argued to his heart’s content and was ready to call a retreat. If the young cameraman hadn’t reminded him that some of his insults were too explicit and could get the stream banned—for both him and the instigating haters—he might have kept going.

The production team had found out what was happening and had already helped by banning the accounts of viewers who had made excessive comments and baselessly insulted Arabella Donovan. The cameraman told him to cool down and not ruin his health over some keyboard warriors, but Hector Donovan still felt unsatisfied, unwilling to let it go so easily.

However, after venting, Hector Donovan had calmed down a bit. The moment he sat down, he eagerly returned to their previous conversation.

"Sweetheart, sweetheart! What was that you just said about Zora’s stepmother bribing Jude Underwood and plotting to hand the child over to human traffickers? Tell me everything, quickly!"

Arabella Donovan had been inside with the child and had fallen asleep while waiting. When she heard her phone vibrate, she groggily sat up and saw her second brother’s reply. She rubbed her eyes and typed back.

"It’s just like I said. Zora’s stepmother is probably worried that her existence will affect her and her son’s claim to the Coleman family inheritance. So, she wanted to find a chance to get rid of Zora, to make her disappear forever. That way, the Coleman family fortune would belong solely to her and her son."

"I suspect she also intentionally arranged for both children to participate in this reality show."

Hector Donovan wasn’t slow on the uptake; he immediately understood the key point.

"So she had the production team deliberately pair her son with me, and Zora with Jude Underwood."

"Exactly. Even if it were investigated later, most people would just think she wanted her son to ride on your coattails and use your fame to get a boost in popularity. They wouldn’t guess that her target from the very beginning wasn’t you and her son, but her stepdaughter and Jude Underwood, who she had bribed long ago."

"And there’s another advantage to this plan. When Zora gets abducted, her son—as the younger brother also on the show—could also be seen as a potential target for the traffickers. At that point, all she would need to do is put on a good performance based on that, and she could easily clear herself of any suspicion."

Hector Donovan thought his sister’s analysis made a lot of sense and couldn’t help but sigh in admiration.

"Based on what you’re saying, this woman is a real schemer. Too bad for her, she ran into a wildcard like me who doesn’t play by the rules." ’And she also ran into my kind-hearted, cheat-code of a sister. The best-laid plans were doomed to sink without a trace.’

"So what do we do now? Just expose the whole thing?"

"Let’s lay low for now. We don’t have enough evidence to bring them to justice yet."

"In the end, nothing actually happened to the child. Given the kind of person Zora’s father is, there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t just sweep it under the rug to save face after learning the truth. Not only would the stepmother not pay for her evil deeds, but he might even cover for her."

"Of course, the most important thing is..."

"To avoid suspicion, the people her stepmom hired... they’re real human traffickers."

The moment Hector Donovan heard his sister say that, he immediately understood her intention.

"You’re planning to lure the snake out of its hole? Lie in wait for them?"

"That’s right. So, we’ll lay low for now and not alert the enemy. Later, I’ll call Mr. Cole first and have him coordinate with the local police in advance. We’ll work with them to trap them like a turtle in a jar and eliminate this threat for good."

Hector Donovan felt his blood boil with excitement and accepted the plan without hesitation.

「After Arabella and the others finished their nap」, a group of uninvited guests dropped by their "home."

As the lucky pair who had finished fastest and secured the best house, Hector Donovan and his group inevitably became the prime target for everyone else’s "interviews." And it was worth noting that these people had apparently coordinated and come as a pack.

Hector Donovan glanced at Milton Lambert, who was acting all chummy with him; at Serena Taylor, who was fidgeting nearby, eager to say something; and at Jude Underwood, who had managed to sneak in with the crowd to take advantage of the chaos. He felt his head buzzing, his headache threatening to split his skull.

Just as his patience was wearing thin, on the verge of exploding at the slightest spark, a familiar muttering suddenly reached his ears.

’I can’t believe it. This Mr. Dawson is a huge sucker, too!’