Revenge is best served cold

After returning from the mall, I threw myself back into my interior design work. That same day, I submitted my design draft.

A week later, the preliminary results were announced on the competition's website -both Elsa and I had made the cut.

At the time, I was in the studio with Levi. When he saw Elsa's design, he couldn't help but scoff. "This is seriously bad. She probably won't make it past the semifinals."

I pulled up her submission and nodded in full agreement. Though her design was polished and complete, it lacked any originality. The organizers had likely passed her based on completion alone.

I scanned through the other selected works. A few designs bore a striking resemblance to the one Elsa had won with in my past life.

With her skill level, making it this far was already pure luck. Yet she had undeniably taken home an award last time. That alone made it clear that something shady was going on behind the scenes.

The organizers gathered all the semifinalists into a group chat. To be cautious, I joined with a secondary account.

The moment I got in, I took note of the social media profiles of those designers whose work had looked suspiciously familiar.

Just then, a new message popped up.

Elsa had entered the chat.

Before anyone could exchange pleasantries, she dropped a selfie in the group chat. After making sure people had seen it, she quickly deleted it.

Someone had already recognized her.

"Aren't you the Brown family's second daughter? Never thought you'd be interested in a competition like this."

"Competitions are for dreams, and money is for life. Why not have both?"

Elsa sent a shy emoji. "Oops, sorry, I sent a selfie by mistake. Hope you guys don't mind."

Everyone reassured her that it was no problem. In fact, they even joked that they wouldn't mind if she "accidentally" sent a couple more.

I followed the crowd and sent an emoji in the chat.

The moment I did, the group fell into complete silence. Then, chaos erupted after a brief pause.

"Shirley? Wait... Is this LunaGlo's Shirley?"

"Hasn't Shirley been out of the design scene for ages? Is this really the Shirley I know?"

"How are we supposed to compete if legends like her are joining?"

Elsa looked like she wanted to say something, but before her message could even register, it was drowned out by the flood of excited chatter.

Levi burst into laughter beside me. "Wow, Elsa really thought she could grab attention by dropping a selfie. And yet, all it took was one emoji from you to completely steal her thunder."

I chuckled lightly. "That... I didn't expect."

I knew the name Shirley still carried some weight, but I hadn't realized just how much. Just as I was mulling it over, a friend request suddenly popped up. It was from Elsa.

I hesitated for a moment.

Levi shot me an amused look, clearly eager for some drama.

I clicked "Accept".

Almost immediately, a message came through. "Shirley, I'm a huge fan of yours!"noveldrama

I couldn't help but let out a small laugh. I quickly typed out a polite response. "Thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing your work."

A reply came almost instantly. "Shirley, if I perform well in this competition, would you consider taking me as your student?"

Before I could even react, Levi exploded. "Student? As if!"

I smirked. "If I weren't already part of the studio, she'd probably be asking to join us next."

Elsa had always wanted to get into LunaGlo. The only reason she had never tried was because I was one of the founders of LunaGlo's domestic branch.

It seemed she still hadn't given up on the idea of being mentored by Shirley. I'd love to see the look on her face if she ever found out I was Shirley.