Revenge Begins: Reincarnated as a Hated Idol!-Chapter 44: Patience or Vengeance

Aren was sitting in the third seat beside the window, just behind Ariana. To his surprise, the seat behind her was left empty, as if waiting for him.

Selene, on the other hand, sat on the last seat in the middle row. There were a total of five rows in the classroom, the teacher finishing his lecture in the front.

Aren didn’t notice anything wrong until the teacher left and the break began.

First, the class turned boisterous, gossiping among themselves.

Some students approached Aren to either greet him or ask him questions about the entertainment industry. Some even asked about his dating life, whether he was single or dating anyone.

With a friendly attitude, Aren answered all their questions. Some of them were even surprised by how humbly he acted, fully opposite to how one would expect a celebrity to act.

When the students left him alone, he noticed Ariana, sitting alone in the front seat, no one approaching her or trying to strike up a conversation.

She seemed lonely.

From behind, he could see her long raven hair cascading down the back of the chair in a glossy waterfall.

He then noticed a paper ball fly past him and hit her on the head—however, she didn’t react.

It was as if this was normal for her.

Another crumpled wad, the size of a marble, came and hit her behind the neck.

Aren looked back and noticed Selene smiling with an amused expression on her face, two boys sitting beside her, throwing paper balls at Ariana.

He understood immediately what was going on.

’So Neil told his children about Ariana’s birth and his affair with Amelia.’

Aren didn’t know if he should act happy, angry, or sad at that revelation.

This meant Ariana now knew that he wasn’t her biological father and that her mother was a cheating bitch.

And for Selene to harass Ariana, Neil must have announced that Ariana could inherit his agency and wealth as well, making her a competitor of Selene and Neil’s other children.

Otherwise, Aren had always seen Selene and Ariana acting as close friends and not like this.

’What should I do?’

He questioned in his head, seeing Ariana’s lonely back and the paper balls accumulating around her bench on the marble floor.

Even though he felt the urge to stand up and put an end to all this, he knew that he didn’t have enough power to go against Selene in this situation.

Just the two boys who were throwing paper balls were muscular and big enough to let Aren know that he would get beaten up if he said anything.

His revenge plan needed at least a month to commence; before that, doing anything would be detrimental and foolish.

He wasn’t the old Aren, who would rush to kill Neil without thinking; he had learned to keep his emotions in check and think before taking action.

Even this second chance at life was a miracle, and he wasn’t counting on another one to happen if he died again by committing a foolish mistake.

The first and most important step to his revenge was keeping himself hidden from Neil’s eyes.

He sighed internally:

’A human’s life is too fragile.’

’It’s so easy to kill someone. Just a small amount of poison in their drink, a tiny cut from a needle laced with poison, a sniper shooting from a distance, or even an accident—there are countless ways to take a human life.’

’I wish I only had to kill Neil, but it’s not that simple.’

’To have the revenge I desire, I need to make sure that I don’t die and that I don’t kill him too early.’

Aren’s motive in coming to this university was fulfilled, at least for now.

’Hang in there, my daughter. I will save you when I’m ready.’

He got up and exited the classroom, taking a taxi back to his hotel room.

Being a celebrity guest, he could leave and come anytime he wanted.

For a month, he wouldn’t go back to the university.

Instead, he planned to become ready to start his revenge.

First, he needed to earn fame points, enough to increase his athleticism level to let him beat anyone in a fight.

The second step was to earn money.

Both these problems could be solved with his upcoming drama—’Symphony of Shadows.’

In the contract Livia had negotiated with the production team, Aren was supposed to receive ten percent of the total profit the drama earned.

He could either end up with no money if the drama flopped or potentially earn a significant amount if it became a success.

This was a gamble, and the production team was happy to accept it. The reason—their independent production.

Since no deal had been made with the platforms, they had no money to pay the actors upfront.

Moreover, there was also a chance that no production house would agree to produce the drama, leaving the production team in a bind.

In that sense, if Aren were to bear this risk alongside them, their pressure would significantly reduce.

However, to their surprise, when they went to pitch the drama to the platforms, many of the platforms agreed right away, including heavyweights like Phoenix and CloudPlay.

They even agreed to pay more than what the production team asked for — all to have the drama air on their platform exclusively.

The production team could only credit this sudden change in the platforms’ behavior to Aren and To Your Heart’s success.

Yes, their script was good, but to have such a huge offer being offered by the platforms—only Aren’s presence could explain that.

Various platform executives even told them outright — it was due to Aren’s recent popularity that they were optimistic to have his next drama air on their platform. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Moreover, the cast included Gisha and Lisa as well, boasting a strong pull towards the To Your Heart audience.

However, the production team hadn’t signed a deal with any platform, waiting for even better offers.

Still, they had received a guarantee and an assurance that their drama wouldn’t be sidelined, and they could begin shooting before a better deal came their way.

Aren was right now sitting in a taxi, traveling to the shooting location for the first day of shoot.

In the taxi, he opened PulseX to check the latest trending topics.

It was then that he noticed his inbox — flooded with mocking messages.

Since he had been at the university earlier, he had set his phone to silent and disabled notifications, causing him to miss the surge of these messages.

[You shameless much! What do you have to say now? Zelda Frank is a respected drama critic. She has exposed your drama for what it is — Garbage!]

[...]

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(A/N - Thanks for reading. ^..^)