Hiding Behind Her Superficiality by Kyla Olson

Chapter 38 They Have Been Hacked
Callum’s voice pulled Elspeth back to her senses. She gazed at him as he looked rather solemn under the dim light, and her
heart pounded against her chest.
“Yeah?”
Callum had a few glasses of wine. He looked slightly different, and his gaze was more profound than usual.
“Do you like Blake?”
She couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows at the question. “What makes you think I like Blake?”
He took a step forward. “If you didn’t like him, why did you shoot commercials with him? Why didn’t you reject his confession?
And...” There was a tinge of something in his voice, and his gaze was so deep that she felt that she was drowning.
Elspeth held his shoulders and said softly, “Callum, you’re drunk.”
When he heard the word ‘drunk’, he sobered up a little and took a step back. “No, I’m not drunk. I just want to remind you not to
be with Blake. What happened last time was a lesson.”
His remarks reminded her of what happened a few months ago when Blake’s obsessive fans kidnapped her, locked her up in the
restroom, and beat her up. She felt a chill down her spine when she thought of the crazy fans’ heinous faces.
Thankfully, she didn’t fancy Blake, or his fans, obsessive or not, would have hunted her down any way they could.
“Got it. Thanks for the reminder, but I don’t like Blake.” She smiled faintly. “Is that all? If so, I’m going to bed now.”
The current atmosphere was a bit strange. She didn’t know what Callum was thinking about, and he was a little odd today, so
she had the urge to escape from him.
He didn’t say anything in response, so she quickly blurted, “Good night. Don’t stay up so late.” Then, she hastily went to her
room.
The next day, Callum didn’t call Elspeth to the office to discuss the new quarterly program as usual. She felt that it was rather
odd but did not ask him about it.

When it was almost noon, she suddenly heard a cry from the desk not far away. “D*mn! There’s something wrong with my
computer!”
She cast a suspicious glance at the shout. In the next second, all the computer screens in the planning department became
blank. At the same time, horrified shrieks echoed throughout the office.
“My draft! I didn’t save it!”
“I just finished drawing the outlines!”
“What is going on? Can someone please take care of this?!”
As the complaints resonated in the office, she rose to her feet, cleared her throat, and said loudly, “Alright, calm down.”
“How can we calm down like you, Miss Lynwood? Everyone’s computers are broken, except yours,” someone whined. Elspeth
cast a cold glare at the person who spoke, and the person shut her mouth in fright.
She designed her own operating system, and no virus could invade and hack her computer, which was why her computer was
fine.
Elspeth recognized the person who talked back to her. Her name was Linda Shaw. She was the closest to Ophelia when Ophelia
came to the office.
“What? Miss Lynwood’s computer is fine?” All the staff looked at Elspeth’s computer and found that it was running smoothly.
Linda clicked her tongue and sneered, “Miss Lynwood, no offense, but why is your computer okay when all of our computers are
broken? Did you...”
She trailed off mid-sentence, but everyone knew that she was implying that Elspeth must have done something to hack their
computers. They began to suspect Elspeth’s motives for doing so.
Elspeth glared coldly at Linda and asked, “What are you implying?”
Linda raised her chin to show that she wouldn’t back down. “I’m not bad-mouthing you. I’m just stating my opinion. If you didn’t
do it, prove it. You don’t have to threaten me!”
Elspeth turned to look at the other employees. “Do you need me to prove my innocence?”

A man slowly said, “Miss Lynwood, I know you, so I don’t think you’d do something like this, but—”
“Why not?!” Linda interjected. “Everyone wants to become the best employee in the company. By doing so, she can defeat the
rest of us and steal the limelight!”
Elspeth immediately understood what she was trying to do with her brazen remarks. “Linda, it seems like you know ‘my’ motive
better than I do.”
“What?!” Linda’s face turned pale as she stammered, “No, I don’t! You’re trying to accuse me, aren’t you? M-My computer broke
down too!”
She pointed to her computer and exclaimed, “My computer was the first to break down. The screen suddenly turned blank when
I was working on the documents!”
Elspeth raised eyebrows at Linda’s triumphant smirk as she asked, “Can I take a look at your computer?”
“Sure.” Linda nodded confidently. “Feel free to look. It broke down anyway, so there’s nothing to hide.”
She had hacked the computer with the most destructive computer virus, so she was confident that Elspeth would not be able to
restore the computer.
Elspeth smiled mysteriously as she warned, “Okay. Don’t come crying to me later.”
She went to check Linda’s computer and found that it was hacked by a virus called Efira. It was a notorious computer virus, and
there were only five people in the world who could crack it.
Unfortunately for Linda, Elspeth was one of them.
Elspeth quickly typed codes on the computer, and strings of incomprehensible letters and mathematical symbols kept appearing
on the screen. The employees watched on in amazement.
Finally, she managed to crack the virus. The moment she restored the computer, everyone saw Linda’s unfinished creation on
the screen—a simple sketch of a frog.
“Oh? The documents you were working on were this frog, huh?” Elspeth mocked.

“No! M-Maybe when the virus invaded my computer, it changed my documents into this frog!” Linda tried to explain herself. As
more people looked in her direction skeptically, she flushed and added awkwardly, “I did work on the documents. If you don’t
believe me, I can show you my backup file—”
She was too nervous and accidentally spilled the beans by saying that she had managed to save her file.
“You have a backup? Wow, Miss Shaw, you can predict the future, huh? You knew a virus would hit the computer, so you saved
your file in advance.” Elspeth didn’t hesitate to expose her lies.
When Linda saw that her scheme had been exposed, she snarled, “Yeah, I did it, so what?! If it hadn’t been for you, I would have
become the supervisor when Ava was promoted! I’ve been working diligently in this company for years, and you came out of
nowhere and snatched my promotion! So, I’m pissed!”
She had spent years of effort for the company, but why didn’t she get anything in return?!