I Married the President

Chapter 217: Chapter 217: Living Up to Expectations and Reaching a New Height of Ugliness

I nearly fell asleep several times, only for Henry Hartwell to nudge me awake with his elbow. I dozed groggily for almost half an hour before finally shaking off the drowsiness.

By now, the awards ceremony had already begun.

To her surprise, that big-shot author she’d run into at the mall today was also here. It was just her turn to go on stage to accept an award, and she was actually wearing that frumpy, ugly black dress.

Although Claire Sinclair was sitting in the front row, she couldn’t see the faces on stage clearly. She had to watch the live feed on the large display screen.

Just as she expected, Lily Yariel looked worse than ever on camera...

Though only in her twenties, on camera she looked to be in her thirties or forties. Her arms were sausage-like, her legs were stumpy, and a pair of black-framed glasses sat on her face. Combined with the gaudy diamond ring on her index finger, she had perfected the look of a middle-aged woman. When she smiled, revealing a gummy grin, it even gave the impression that she had buck teeth.

It was truly a tragic sight...

Lily Yariel didn’t seem to notice what she looked like on camera. After accepting her trophy, she proudly began her acceptance speech:

”First, I want to thank the CloudScript Group for giving me such a wonderful platform. Thank you to my readers. Winning this Grand Prize for Originality will be my motivation to write in the coming year. I will continue to work hard. Thank you, everyone.”

With that, Lily Yariel turned and walked off the stage.

She inadvertently glanced at the big screen, saw herself, and froze for a noticeable moment. She probably didn’t even recognize herself at first.

A few seconds later, the realization seemed to dawn on her, and she scurried off the stage as if fleeing for her life.

The camera followed her the entire time...

A few young women sitting behind Claire Sinclair, who seemed to have been holding back for a while, finally couldn’t resist gossiping. ”Lily Yariel didn’t disappoint, she’s reached a new level of ugly, haha... So hideous!”

”What she wore last year was nowhere near this outrageous. Her stylist has to be doing it on purpose, hahaha...”

”A serial plagiarist like her wins the Grand Prize for Originality every year by copying others. The stylist is just getting revenge for us real original authors, hahaha...”

The group laughed for a long time before the topic suddenly shifted to something else.

”I heard the author of *Senluo, Senluo, Please Don’t Say Goodbye to the World* is also here tonight. I wonder how she feels watching the ’master’ who plagiarized her accept an award on stage.”

”How else could she feel? It must feel like eating shit. To see something you poured your heart and soul into get stolen and used for a ship in another novel, without even bothering to change the names. Heh, what a joke. And that person wins the Grand Prize for Originality every year.”

”If I were Mrs. Quincy, I’d be so furious I’d march right up on stage and slap her. I’ve never seen such a shameless plagiarist. It’s disgusting!”

”Hey, quiet down! My girl Flora is about to sing...”

On stage, another celebrity began to sing.

But Claire Sinclair couldn’t focus on the music. Her mind was completely occupied by the conversation she’d just overheard.

’My *Senluo* was plagiarized by Lily Yariel? For real?’

Claire Sinclair leaned toward Henry Hartwell’s ear and asked uncertainly, ”Teacher Hartwell, they said my work was plagiarized by that woman just now. Is that true?”

Henry Hartwell smiled calmly. ”That romance queen copies beautiful lines from our newspaper’s articles every year. It’s not surprising at all that she copied you.”

”That’s outrageous!” Before, when Claire Sinclair heard her senior colleagues talk about plagiarists targeting the newspaper, she’d felt it had nothing to do with her, so she didn’t feel much of anything.

Now that it was her turn, she truly felt like she had eaten shit. ’So disgusting!’