Chapter 519: Zion Yeats Is Not Zion Yeats

Chapter 519: Chapter 519: Zion Yeats Is Not Zion Yeats

Silence fell over the lounge.

Claire gritted her teeth.

Estelle raised an eyebrow, waiting leisurely.

Would Claire kneel or not?

If she didn’t, she would be slapping her own face. After all, she was the one who insisted on prioritizing the bigger picture. Now, asking her to kneel was also for the sake of that very same bigger picture.

Could it be that Miss Yeats’s so-called "bigger picture" only applied to others? Would Claire dare to be such a hypocrite in front of Zion Yeats?

Even if Zion didn’t say anything, could she afford to abandon her flawless, innocent persona?

Claire bit her lip hard, a fierce internal struggle waging in her mind. Finally, she closed her eyes and, with extreme reluctance, sank to her knees inch by inch.

She actually knelt!

"Are you satisfied? Have you had enough?! Claire is already on her knees! Hurry up and post it online!"

Estelle observed Claire’s expression with amusement. With a light chuckle, she pulled out her phone. "Sure."

DING. The post went through successfully. Old Mrs. Yeats hurriedly helped the tearful Claire up from the floor.

"Claire, oh, you’ve suffered so much! Don’t worry. Once the Yeats family weathers this storm, I’ll definitely make this little bitch Estelle pay!"

"Grandma, it’s okay. I don’t blame my sister..."

Seeing that their goal had been achieved, Zion breathed a sigh of relief. "Estelle, try not to be so willful... Forget it. As long as you know what you’re doing."

The three of them didn’t even bother to pretend anymore and simply turned to leave. They might as well have had "We don’t care about Estelle at all" written across their foreheads.

However, the area outside the lounge wasn’t completely deserted.

Everyone knew this was Estelle’s lounge. When the Yeats had rushed over earlier, especially Old Mrs. Yeats, they had looked ready to murder someone. Ten minutes later, the group left happily. Even Claire had a smile on her face.

What was going on?

Soon after, people saw the trending topic online.

#EstelleLockwoodApologizes#

What? Estelle was apologizing? She was the victim here! Why would she apologize?

Utterly bewildered, the crowd clicked on the hashtag, only to be met with outrage.

[Estelle Lockwood: I am very sorry. Everything that happened today was a misunderstanding on my part. Miss Claire Yeats did not bribe Benjamin Carter to target me. This was all just a joke between sisters. I sincerely apologize for the negative impact this has caused everyone.]

Unsurprisingly, the comment section was flooded with question marks.

At first, Claire’s fans managed to control the narrative:

[See?! Our Claire is innocent! Estelle admitted it herself. It was just a joke between sisters. Why is everyone blowing this out of proportion? How shameless!]

[Estelle has already apologized! The competition committee needs to apologize to Claire now too!]

But soon enough, the other contestants couldn’t bear to just watch anymore.

[A joke between sisters? Heh. How can her fans still use Estelle’s apology as proof of Claire’s innocence?]

[Look at what I just filmed.]

A video was posted in the comments.

It showed four members of the Yeats family aggressively storming into Estelle’s lounge. Although the exact conversation was muffled, Old Mrs. Yeats’s raised voice could clearly be heard shouting words like "bitch" and "kneel."

Three minutes later, the Yeats walked out, beaming with joy. Right at that moment, Estelle posted her apology.

[Anyone with a brain can figure out what happened. Are the Yeats treating us contestants like we don’t exist? How could they just blatantly ignore us like this?]

[Now the whole venue knows that the Yeats brought the main culprit over to force the victim into forgiving her and apologizing. Wow, the audacity!]

Claire was so furious she smashed her phone.

How could this happen?! This wasn’t how she had envisioned it at all!

Estelle wasn’t apologizing—she was throwing dirty water on them again!

But... but...

This apology wasn’t meant for the netizens anyway; it was for the business partners. It was to tell the partners that Estelle was, regardless of everything, still a member of the Yeats family. Since Estelle had already forgiven Claire, this was purely a private family matter.

Withdrawing their investments now would mean offending the Yeats. Even though public opinion had exploded, as long as Estelle held the title of a Yeats family member, the family would remain unscathed.

The victim was a Yeats, and she had forgiven another Yeats. The netizens were nothing but outsiders. What was all the fuss about?

Fortunately, neither Midnight Studio nor Aethel Group had brought up canceling their collaborations.

Claire finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The competition would resume tomorrow, so all the contestants had checked into the hotel today.

Nathaniel brewed a cup of tea for Estelle. "What are you thinking about?"

Estelle narrowed her eyes. "I’m thinking about Zion."

"The Head of the Yeats?"

"Yeah," Estelle said. "Whenever my parents or my grandfather would subtly mention Zion, they always said he was a good person—a very responsible and dependable man.

"Although Grandpa never explicitly mentioned Zion’s name, he told me a story when I was little.

"He said there was a brother and a sister. The sister wasn’t a biological child of the family, just a niece, so she was unwelcome and often called a burden. Only the brother treated her well.

"I didn’t understand it back then, but thinking about it now, the siblings Grandpa talked about were my mother and Zion.

"And in the notes my mother left behind, she also mentioned her brother. She wrote that he was very good to her and that the most important person in her life—aside from my father and me—was him.

"Right up until she passed away, she wrote in her diary about how she couldn’t see her brother one last time, and how much she missed him.

"Even though my mother didn’t write Zion’s name either, the only ’brother’ who could have helped her in the Yeats family had to be Zion.

"But look at the current Head of the Yeats..." Estelle frowned, searching for the right words to describe him. "He’s cowardly, incompetent, and unable to distinguish right from wrong. Is he really the ’brother’ from my mother’s diary?"

Nathaniel narrowed his eyes. "So... you suspect that the current Zion isn’t the same Zion from back then?"

Estelle nodded. "Zion became the Head of the Yeats at the age of twenty. What was the state of the Yeats family back then? But now, Old Mr. Yeats has been forced to step up again as the true power-holder of the family. Why? Because the current Zion doesn’t have the ability to shoulder the responsibility of the family at all.

"But if Zion had always been like this, would Old Mr. Yeats have handed the position of Family Head over to him? The Yeats family wouldn’t have reached new heights under his initial leadership, either.

"But before my mother left the Yeats family..." Estelle furrowed her brows. "It seems like Zion changed.

"He’s weak, useless, selfish, and ignorant. He’s not cut out to be the Family Head. He allows Claire and Old Mrs. Yeats to lead him by the nose. He has no mind of his own—he just echoes whatever others say, whatever his mother tells him. He’s entirely self-centered and selfish, yet he tries to put on a sickeningly compassionate front.

"How could a person like this possibly be the brilliant and exceptionally talented Head of the Yeats from back then?"