Chapter 109: The Mysterious Adopter

That evening, Basha led her team and the orphanage director through the facility. She frowned as she surveyed the premises. "How can a destitute orphanage be this clean? Charles, handle this."

The man named Charles skillfully opened a toolbox and began pulling out various items. He was a specialist in staging environments for deception. As Charles got to work, Basha nodded and continued deeper into the building.

"And this door—it must look dilapidated. It would be best if there were bloodstains on it. When the reporters arrive tomorrow, tell them it happened because two children were fighting over a loaf of bread."

"Bingbo, take that dead rat I told you to bring and place it in this corner. Tomorrow, pretend to find it accidentally and say it starved to death right there."

After a flurry of activity, the director’s jaw dropped. He had no idea that fraud could be taken to such ridiculous lengths. "Isn't this a bit too much? Will people actually believe it?" He still felt like this was treating others like fools.

Basha glanced at him with disdain. "Do you think ordinary people donate to us? Those who donate are public figures who crave reputation. They don't care if it's true or false; the more miserable the recipient, the more prestige they gain."

Hearing this, the director finally understood. A public figure gains a massive surge of popularity after making a donation—does anyone ever check on the recipient? No one cares. Moreover, the goodwill gained from a donation is generally proportional to the misery of the recipient; the more tragic the situation, the higher the approval rating.

Everything was proceeding smoothly until Basha squinted at the door to Long Mengting’s room. "What's up with this door? Why is it so luxurious? How wealthy is this orphanage? You even installed a door like this—my own door at home isn't even this nice."

Basha waved her hand. "Take it down."

The director’s heart tightened, and he blocked the men preparing to remove the door. "This door absolutely cannot be removed."

Basha looked at him, speechless. "What? Are you afraid I’ll break it?" Modern doors were designed for easy installation and removal; taking it down wouldn't cause any damage.

The director said nothing more, leaning his back against the door and shaking his head. "It really can't be touched. The child inside is sleeping, and I'm afraid of waking her."

"So she's sleeping? What can a child possibly say? I'll go talk to her myself!" Basha pushed him aside and, without further ado, opened the door and walked inside.

The moment she stepped into the room, she froze. It was pitch black inside. Logically, the orphanage hadn't turned off the lights yet, so the light from the hallway should have shone in. Puzzled, she looked back, only to see that the door had already closed.

"What's going on? I didn't even hear the door close."

Just then, a cold breeze brushed against her back. She instinctively spun around, only to see a young girl standing in the darkness. It was the "eerie" girl who had been the subject of so many rumors, sitting on the bed, staring coldly at her. Recalling the stories she had heard, combined with the current atmosphere, Basha’s heart began to hammer uncontrollably. She stared fixedly at the girl, not daring to move an inch.

Suddenly, the girl stood up and looked at her, her gaze cold enough to be suffocating. As their eyes locked, Basha fell into a momentary trance. In that brief second, the girl vanished from where she stood.

"Ah..."

Panic seized her. She spun around, desperate to open the door and escape, but as she turned, she saw the girl standing right behind her, eyes locked onto her.

"AHHH!!!"

Overwhelmed by pure terror, she shoved the girl aside and scrambled to open the door. In her panic, it took her forever to get it open, while the girl watched her calmly as she fled.

Once Basha had escaped, Long Mengting curled her lip in contempt. "What a coward. She wanted to take my door? I had to fight hard to get this room; who does she think she is, trying to tear it down?"

Feng Tianlin had intended to wait until tomorrow when there were more people around to act, so as not to scare off this "great philanthropist," but he hadn't expected her to come looking for trouble herself. Since she was already terrified, there was nothing more to be done. Given her influence in their circles, she would likely help spread the fear for him.

Sure enough, as soon as Basha stumbled out of the room, she saw everyone looking at her with confusion. One of them tentatively asked, "What were you doing in there?"

Basha looked at them in disbelief, her breathing ragged. "Leave. Now."

They were stunned. "Leave? Go where?"

"I said leave!" Basha roared, transforming her fear into fury.

The rest of the team didn't understand, but Basha had already bolted. Helpless, they all followed her, leaving the director sighing in place. "Sigh... why did you have to provoke her?" He left, feeling dejected.

Basha didn't quiet down after returning. When the media questioned why she had stopped her donations to the orphanage, she claimed, "There is a Chinese girl in that orphanage, and she is the child of a witch!"

This statement triggered a media frenzy. Witches lived in the Elf Forest, minding their own business; as long as you didn't enter the forest, they generally wouldn't harm you. But Basha’s claim that a witch's child was in an orphanage—and a Chinese one at that—exploded in the entertainment industry of the Sunset Kingdom.

Just as the scandal reached its peak, Basha’s past misconduct was exposed: fraudulent donations, tax evasion, substance abuse, child abuse... One scandal after another was unearthed, each more unbelievable than the last. Was this really the woman hailed as the human embodiment of the goddess of kindness?

The director didn't forget to kick her while she was down. He told the media, "Just because she wanted to stage a scene, she tried to tear down a child’s door. When the child refused, she... *sob*..." He spoke with such vivid emotion, tears streaming down his face, that it broke the hearts of all who heard him.

Facing these accusations, Basha publicly declared, "If I am guilty, I will go to prison myself."

The day after her statement, she and her team were arrested one after another. With Basha behind bars, it was proven that her previous scandals were true, and the claim about the Chinese girl being a witch’s child was naturally exposed as a lie.

After the media storm passed, everyone seemed to forget about the Chinese girl who had briefly been the center of such intense attention. But one person remembered.

A man in a suit arrived at the orphanage. He looked refined, around thirty years old, dressed in a sharp suit and wearing gold-rimmed glasses, which he pushed up from time to time as he glanced at his expensive watch.

He approached the director and said he wanted to adopt a child. Hearing this, the director immediately became excited. "What about that Chinese girl, the one who was very famous a while ago? She's beautiful."

"That will do." A smile, almost impossible to notice, appeared on the man's face.