Chapter 1074 Charles’ Persistence
‘Why do you guys care if he sounds cool or not? Aren’t we here to get some evidence? Where’s the evidence?’ There were a lot of netizens who were fangirling over Charles, while some of them were more focused on the main point. That was why some netizens reminded the rest that they were there searching for evidence. The rest of the netizens quickly responded to this.
‘That’s right. We were looking for evidence. How did we get distracted?’ someone commented. ‘I can’t help it. President Lane is an entertainer—his presence attracted all of our attention. Shrug’
‘Charles, Miss Reed said that the male lead of this matter will make a public statement about this, President Lane. Are you admitting that you’re the male lead of this whole gossip that’s going on? Where’s the evidence? Why aren’t you giving it to us?’ one comment asked.
‘Yeah,’ another one agreed. Charles saw the comments he had been mentioned in and tapped on them to reply to the netizens’ messages. ‘Don’t worry. There’ll be no lack of evidence. I was too furious earlier, so I only posted a bunch of words without providing the evidence. I’ll post it now, so you guys will just have to refresh my profile.’
The moment Charles posted his reply, all of the netizens twisted their faces into looks of exasperation. They were speechless. What? How could he forget such a thing? But the netizens could tell that Charles was genuinely furious. They refreshed Charles’ page while chuckling at his comment. As promised, there was a new post the next time they refreshed it. The post’s content was simple and straightforward—it was a single sentence and a video. ‘Here’s the evidence you guys want,’ it said, along with a link to a video.
All the netizens clicked on the link to look at the evidence without hesitation. When they saw the video, they immediately knew that it was a copy of the CCTV footage. The footage showed Sonia and Charles getting out of the car and walking directly into the hotel. A bellboy stepped forward and led them into a room. Then, the footage switched to show another angle of them walking toward their room and entering it. Alas, since the CCTVs were located along the corridors, they couldn’t show the full view of the room.
After the video showed Sonia and Charles entering the room, the netizens realized that another person was already in the room. Of course, most netizens couldn’t recognize the person, but a few more knowledgeable netizens immediately knew who the man in the room was. He was the man who had stepped forward to prove that the rumors were false—he was Brian, the governor of the Bank of Caruna’s headquarters in Seafield.
Soon after that, Sonia and Charles sat opposite the governor. The CCTV was fast-forwarded—the left corner of the video showed the time moving at a faster pace. The video went on for another five minutes before the netizens saw Sonia and Charles getting to their feet. They shook hands with Brian before leaving the room. But the netizens weren’t idiots—they knew that Sonia and Charles couldn’t have stayed in the room for just five minutes.
The video had been fast-forwarded so that it seemed like Sonia and Charles were only in the room for five minutes, and this was done so that the netizens would be able to watch the whole clip easily. Otherwise, they’d have to stare at their screens for a few hours! Either way, the video made it clear that Sonia and Charles hadn’t left the room when they entered it, so the netizens didn’t care if they fast-forwarded the video.
After Sonia and Charles left the room, the video returned to its original pace again. It showed them walking along the corridor into the elevator, then changed to show them departing the elevator and walking out of the hotel lobby. They walked out of the main entrance and stopped outside. They were clearly waiting for their ride. While waiting, Sonia shuddered in response to the cold weather and rubbed her arms to warm herself. Charles took his jacket off and put it over Sonia. After a while, he started to shiver, so Sonia returned the coat to him.
This scene was familiar to most netizens as they had seen the pictures of the duo handing each other the jacket. The video continued for a while, and the car arrived in front of the hotel a bit after Sonia returned the jacket to Charles. Charles stepped forward and opened the door for Sonia to enter before he got in. Right after that, the car drove off, and the video came to an end. The scene where Charles opened the car door for Sonia had also been snapped in pictures.
‘Woah. I was wondering why Squirrel Media only uploaded pictures and not videos to prove that Miss Reed and President Lane were sleeping with each other. After all, videos are more convincing, aren’t they? I knew they would have videos of Miss Reed and President Lane, yet they only uploaded images of them. Now I know why! They didn’t upload the videos because that would prove the innocence of these two people. If they posted the video, they would prove that they were just creating rumors! That was why Squirrel simply took pictures that made them seem like they were in love. Squirrel Media was just fooling us all along! They’re disgusting! Pfft!’ one comment read.
‘That’s right! I can’t believe Squirrel started rumors about them when they just went to the hotel to discuss work-related matters. Wouldn’t everyone have to avoid having hotel meetings if that were the case?’ another comment asked.
‘Yeah. Since when did hotels get such a nasty image for themselves? Do people automatically associate hotels with the act of doing something immoral? I feel like I’m about to puke because of how gross these media companies are! Sure, some people may use hotels as a spot for their physiological needs, but some people go there for work and relaxation purposes, right? But I’m curious… Miss Lore and Squirrel Media had the guts to start rumors about Miss Reed and President Lane when they were just there for work. Weren’t they afraid that Miss Reed and President Lane would pull the CCTV footage out to prove them wrong?’
Charles immediately responded to this comment. ‘Well, they destroyed the CCTV footage almost immediately after that. By the time we knew of these rumors, it was too late for us to retrieve the footage. We wouldn’t have taken so long to reveal the evidence otherwise. We had been trying to fix the footage before this. I bet Lynette’s mad right now. She probably hadn’t expected us to fix the CCTV footage successfully. Hahaha…’ The netizens could tell that Charles was pleased with himself just by looking at the way he made his comment.
Even though many netizens were familiar with how he communicated on the Internet, they were still speechless. But, of course, this didn’t last for long—they went back to commenting after a while. ‘Oh, so they ruined the CCTV footage. That explains why they were so prepared to start these rumors. As President Lane said, they probably assumed that they couldn’t retrieve the CCTV footage,’ one comment wrote.
‘Ah… It seems like Miss Lore and the people working with Squirrel Media are pretty dumb. I can’t believe they don’t know that CCTV footage can be recovered.’ The netizens started teasing the people who created the rumors. Amidst the friendly and playful comments were a few that sounded a little harsher.
‘Am I the only one who wants to know why President Lane and Miss Reed have to meet and discuss work at a hotel? Can’t they do it somewhere else? Why did they have to pick a hotel out of all the places? Isn’t that just rather puzzling?’ In other words, this comment implied that Charles and Sonia had ulterior motives for deciding to have a meeting in a hotel. The other netizens were infuriated by this comment and were about to attack this person when Charles responded with a long text.
‘What’s so puzzling about it? If you’re dirty-minded, the whole world looks dirty to you. Let me tell you why we picked a hotel and not somewhere else. It’s because this hotel is the only seven-star hotel in our area. We wanted to ask Mr. Smith for some help, and we were the ones who invited him for a meet-up, so we naturally wanted a place with a better environment. We wanted to show our sincerity to ensure we’d achieve our goals!’
