Not long after, my squad’s private communicator buzzed and a familiar voice came through. “Crimson Hawk, are you really coming back?”

It was Silver Wolf, one of my old comrades.

“You were always the most talented among us. Quitting back then just to get married was such a waste. When the commander saw your return request, he actually jumped out of his chair. Everyone’s thrilled you’re coming back.”

Hearing that, a faint warmth stirred inside me. “Yes, but when you come pick me up in a few days, I’ll need a small favor.”

Silver Wolf sounded confused but agreed right away. “What about your husband and kid?”

I smiled slightly as I answered, “I’m leaving them, of course.”

Right at that moment, my husband and son had just walked to the doorway and heard every word.

My son hesitated, asking, “Daddy... will Mommy really leave us?”

Jason sneered. “She’s just bluffing. She wouldn’t have the heart.”

Realizing them standing behind me, I quickly hung up the phone.

“Scarlet Blaine, if you kneel and beg for forgiveness now, I might be generous enough to let you stay in the storage room.”

I didn’t even look at him. I just grabbed my suitcase and walked out and the front door slammed shut behind me with a sharp clang.

No sooner had I stepped outside than a black Rolls-Royce pulled up quietly beside me. The window rolled down, revealing Gideon’s worried face.

“Scarlet, dear, get in. I’ll drive you home.”

I shook my head politely. “I’ll be leaving soon anyway, Father. I don’t want to trouble you.”

He hurried out of the car and blocked my path, his tone soft and pleading. “For the sake of this old man’s face… can you give my son one more chance?”

I looked past him. Seven years of disappointment had already drained everything from my heart. When I didn’t answer, tears filled his eyes.

“My seventieth birthday is in three days. Please, stay and celebrate with me one last time.”

He had always treated me like his own daughter and stood up for me many times. Thinking of this, my resolve gradually faltered. In the end, I quietly nodded.

The night of the banquet, the hotel ballroom sparkled with lights and high society faces. Jason Gardner stood among the guests, Yuna by his side, their arms linked, with Timothy holding her hand.

“Oh, Mr. Gardner. Mrs. Gardner looks stunning tonight. And your son—he’s such a bright boy. What a perfect family.”

Jason stiffened. That was the seventy-eighth person to mistake their relationship today. When he glanced toward me, sitting alone in the corner, a rare flicker of guilt crossed his face.

He quickly corrected them. “Yuna is just my… sister. My wife is over there.”

The guest was immediately flustered and he hurried to apologize to me. I waved it off casually, as if it didn’t matter.

They weren’t really wrong anyway. Soon enough, Yuna would be the wife of Jason Gardner.

Soon after the guests drifted away, Jason walked over to me. “I’ve already shown you enough respect tonight. I won’t mention what happened before, so don’t embarrass yourself. Get off that high horse.”

His tone dripped with arrogance, as if I should be grateful for his so-called generosity.

As soon as he finished speaking, the birthday gifts began to be presented.

Ignoring him, I stepped toward the center of the ballroom, keeping a deliberate distance between us. Jason’s face darkened for a second, but he quickly covered it.

When it was Yuna’s turn, she offered an elegant sandalwood bracelet that must have cost a fortune. Gideon simply gave her a faint nod, nothing like the warm reaction she had clearly hoped for. Her smile faltered and she stomped away in frustration.

Then, every gaze in the room shifted toward me. I picked up a simple bowl of clear broth with plain noodles and carried it to the head table.

“Father, I made this myself. May it bring you warmth and long life.”

The bowl looked humble, with only one poached egg floating on top.

Yuna let out a mocking laugh. “Scarlet, my dear sister-in-law, what a cheap gift.”

Jason’s expression instantly soured, his voice turning sharp. “Take that away. You’re embarrassing the entire Gardner Family.”

A wave of murmurs swept through the crowd, low and mocking.

Gideon ignored the whispers around him. He just quietly picked up the bowl and began to eat. “This is wonderful. Scarlet truly knows me best. She remembers this is my favorite.”

“For all these years, she’s been the one organizing my birthday banquets, managing everything inside and out with such care.”

“Having her as my daughter-in-law is the greatest gift I could ask for.”

At his words, the guests quickly changed their tune. One after another, they praised me, saying I was not only beautiful but also graceful, capable and the perfect daughter-in-law of the Gardner Family.

Yuna’s face twisted with jealousy. Her nails dug so deep into her palm that her skin nearly broke.

Then, out of nowhere, the giant screen on the main stage flickered. A series of indecent photos suddenly filled the screen.

In them, Yuna was completely naked, posing in all kinds of shameful positions. The men’s faces were blurred, but hers was shown clearly for everyone to see.

“Didn’t expect this from the Gardner Family’s adopted daughter. It turns out she’s got quite a wild side.”

“Look at that skin, so fair… think she’d let me have a taste too?”

“I thought the Gardner Family had such strict morals. Guess that was just for show.”

The hall burst into vulgar laughter. Jason and Yuna’s faces went completely white.

Yuna let out a sharp scream, her voice trembling with panic. “Turn it off! Shut it down right now!”

“This isn’t me! Someone’s framing me!”

Unfortunately, no matter how hard they tried, the screen wouldn’t respond. The photos kept looping again and again, filling the room with humiliation.

Jason’s face turned so dark it was almost frightening. Finally, unable to take it any longer, he smashed the power source himself.

Yuna burst into tears, her whole body shaking as she pointed at me with a trembling hand.

“I know you hate me. You’ve always hated me because Jason loves me, because Timmy likes me more. But you can’t ruin me like this, not on Father’s seventieth birthday!”

“This day means everything to him. Do you have no shame at all? Don’t you care about the Gardner Family’s reputation?”

I met her glare calmly, my voice steady. “It wasn’t me.”

Yes, I hated Yuna, but out of respect for Gideon, I would never do something so vile, something that would humiliate the entire family.

Then, suddenly, Timothy ran forward, tears streaking down his small face. “I saw it! Mommy gave the hotel man a USB drive!”

The room fell silent for a beat, then every pair of eyes turned on me, sharp and full of accusation.

Jason’s face twisted with fury. He grabbed my collar and roared, “You witch! What else do you have to say? Even your own son exposed you!”

A hollow pain spread through my chest. I never imagined the deepest cut would come from my own child.

Still, I repeated quietly, “I said, I didn’t do it.”

However, no one believed me. Even Gideon’s expression wavered, his eyes full of sorrow and doubt, but he said nothing.

Jason’s eyes were bloodshot when he raised his hand. “Vicious woman!”

I moved aside and my hand struck his face before he could touch me. “Did you really think I’d just stand there and let you hit me again? Keep dreaming.”

Taking out my phone, I called the emergency number. “Since we both insist we’re right, let the police find out the truth.”

At the word police, Yuna’s face went pale. She quickly grabbed Jason’s sleeve, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Jason, if this becomes public, how can I ever face anyone again?”

Jason gently patted her hand, comforting her. “Nothing to be afraid of. Once the police investigate, the truth will clear your name. No one will dare speak against you then.”

Yuna lowered her head obediently, but sweat glistened on her palms.

When the officers arrived and saw her, their faces instantly darkened in annoyance. “God! You again?”

“Last time we caught you at that nightclub, hiring male escorts for an orgy. You’d barely been released and your record is still fresh, but now this?”

“So, what is it this time?”

Yuna’s face turned deathly pale, her whole body shaking, yet she still forced an awkward smile. “Officers… you must have mistaken me for someone else, right?”

The policemen chuckled at her words. “In all our years on the job, this is the wildest thing we’ve ever seen. Hard to forget, even if we wanted to.”

I couldn’t hide the flicker of surprise in my eyes. She had always claimed to love Jason, yet here she was, cheating on him behind his back.

She threw herself into Jason’s arms, eyes shimmering with tears. “Jason, they’re lying. I didn’t do any of this. Someone must be trying to frame me.”

Jason tightened his arm around her shoulders, his expression soft and steady. “Yuna, you don’t need to explain. I’ve always believed you. There’s no girl in this world kinder and purer than you. I know you’d never do something like this.”

At his words, the officers and I looked at him like he was a man determined to be fooled. Well, if Jason himself wanted to play the willing victim, who was I to stop him?

I turned to the officers instead, urging them to investigate how the photos had been uploaded.

Their report came back quickly. The hotel’s surveillance footage had been deliberately wiped and the data couldn’t be recovered. In short, the uploader remained untraceable.

The moment the words left the officer’s mouth, Jason’s eyes snapped to mine, blazing with anger. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“You set this up, bribed the police and dragged them into ruining Yuna’s name!”

Seeing his blind trust, Yuna’s shoulders relaxed. She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, sobbing harder. In one swift motion, she snatched a fruit knife from the table and pressed it to her throat.

“My reputation is completely ruined now. How can I ever face anyone again?”

“Better to die than live in humiliation. Jason, please just let me die.”

She made to slash her neck. Jason lunged forward, tearing the knife from her hand and gathering her into his arms, his voice thick with pity. “Yuna, what are you doing? Don’t be foolish.”

“None of that matters. The only thing that matters is that you’re here with me. Did you hear me?”

At that moment, Gideon slammed his cane to the floor with a thunderous crack. His voice cut through the chaos. “Enough. All of you, stop this nonsense! Has the Gardner Family not lost enough face tonight?”

At once, the hall fell silent. Not a single guest dared to move an inch.

His gaze swept the room, cold and commanding, as he spoke, “Tonight ends here. Whoever spreads another word will be an enemy of the entire Gardner Group!”

And just like that, under the old man’s iron will, the spectacle collapsed into uneasy silence.

By the time the banquet broke up, the night felt heavy and still. No one dared stir up more trouble. I followed Gideon back to the old house to rest.

Before I went to bed, my phone lit up. It was a message from Yuna. [Recognize who this is?]

Attached to it was a photo of me in bed, AI-generated, face-swapped.

My face perfectly pasted onto Yuna’s naked body. The image was vulgar. Her text dripped with cruel delight and I could almost see her twisted smile behind the screen.

[When these photos hit the internet, do you think my brother will believe you the way he believes me?]

I gave a soft laugh and typed three short words: [Go ahead. Try.]

A moment later, Yuna spread the photos across the major social sites.

[My dear sister-in-law, prepare to lose everything.]

But the instant her upload went live, my countermeasure program triggered. Pixel by pixel, the image began to reconstruct itself.

An AI deep-reversion algorithm deployed, stripping my face from her body and restoring the original pictures. Within seconds, the real images of Yuna Gardner flooded the internet.

I was, after all, an elite field agent. I knew as much about hacking as I did about fieldwork. By contrast, Yuna was clueless, yet still dreaming of my ruin.