The Million-Dollar Heart (Percival and Vivienne)
Chapter 115

Elijah's face suddenly changed.

Arabella stepped forward, reprimanding Vivienne, "I know you can't be Elijah's student, and you're bitter about it, but you're so arrogant!"

"You're just a fame-seeker." Vivienne looked at Elijah as if he were some sort of joke as her right index finger gently tapped on the armrest of her chair. "We've only met a few times at school, and you think you can judge whether I have a talent for perfume blending?"

She laughed again with an expression full of mockery. "How did you figure that out? Psychic powers? Brainwave detection?"

The air in the hall became oppressive and then erupted into laughter like thunder.

One guy shouted, "I finally get it. Elijah's here to pick a fight with Ms. Vivienne. Ms. Vivienne is a double PhD holder. Why would she want to be your student?"

Another guy chimed in. "I was wondering why this whole thing was so weird. If you don't want to take a student, then don't. Ms. Vivienne never once said she wanted to be his student. He and Arabella are acting like Ms. Vivienne is dying to be his student. And he says he can see talent? What an idiot!"

Everyone turned to look. It was Logan and Oberon.

The students from Class Eighteen didn't come to Elijah's talk tonight, and neither of them planned to.

They were just hungry during evening self-study, so they went to the snack bar next to the school auditorium.

When they passed the main entrance of the auditorium and heard that Elijah was taking Arabella as his student, they decided to go in and see.

The auditorium was packed, so they didn't sit down. They just stood by the aisle and listened.

Who would have thought they would hear Elijah insult Vivienne so much? The more they listened, the angrier they got. In the end, they couldn't help but speak up.

After their exposure, everyone also felt that Elijah and Arabella's actions were too deliberate. On the surface, they said they were apologizing to Vivienne, but in fact, they were using the student-teacher relationship to humiliate Vivienne.

Elijah's true intentions were exposed so blatantly. In an instant, he was embarrassed on stage, and his face turned ugly.

He suddenly regretted his actions and felt that he shouldn't have been so arrogant. Arabella only pleaded with him a couple of times, and he agreed to help her humiliate Vivienne with the student-teacher relationship, but now he couldn't get off the stage.

"But Vivienne, you don't have any talent for perfume blending. Our grandmother tested it herself." Arabella saw Elijah had been rebutted and was speechless. She was immediately nervous and quickly came up with a remedy.

"Our grandmother has always made me learn perfume blending since I was little. She favors me because of my talent for perfume blending. But you were dissatisfied with our grandmother because of this, so you took revenge on me and drove Hawthorn Group to bankruptcy."

She cried as she spoke, looking utterly sincere, as if she were heartbroken for Beatrice.

She completely blamed the bankruptcy of the Hawthorn Group on Vivienne's jealousy of her and glossed over the things she herself had done.

Some people actually believed all this. After all, outsiders did not know what was truly going on. From their point of view, Vivienne was the biological daughter of the Hawthorn family; no ordinary person would drive their own family to bankruptcy because of an adopted daughter.

For a while, many people began to privately discuss about how Vivienne was being an ungrateful person.

"Yes, it was Beatrice who told me about your talent differences." Elijah found a topic and quickly echoed it. "Not long ago, Beatrice contacted me. In order to carry on the Hawthorn family's perfume business, she wanted me to take a student between the two of you. I saw Arabella's talent and chose her. But I didn't expect you to become jealous and drive the Hawthorn Group to bankruptcy."

The two of them were turning things upside down, but they spoke with such certainty that you would almost think that they were telling the truth. Vivienne couldn't help but laugh. "Whether I have a talent for perfume blending or not is not up to Beatrice or you, but the works I create." She originally wanted to see what big moves they were going to make tonight. Was this it?

She immediately lost patience.

"What do you mean?" Elijah wondered if he misunderstood. "Are you challenging me? Want to have a perfume blending contest with me?"

"Are you scared?" Vivienne raised her eyebrows and retorted.

She always disliked trouble. But when trouble came knocking, she didn't mind making the other party lose gracefully.

"Do you think you can beat me?" Elijah thought Vivienne was overestimating herself and also felt that she underestimated him. He burst into laughter.

"Vivienne, have you lost your mind?" Arabella pretended to be shocked, but in reality, she was very happy. She just wanted to use Elijah's fame to humiliate Vivienne and vent. She didn't expect Vivienne to challenge Elijah and make trouble for herself.

But she still put on a worried look for Vivienne. "How can you beat Elijah? Just apologize to Elijah now. Act like you never said that."

Others also thought Vivienne had gone mad, and they looked at her in surprise.

Vivienne ignored Arabella, only looking at Elijah with a challenging smile.

"Fine! I'll help you dig your own grave!" Elijah snorted coldly, not taking Vivienne seriously at all. "And don't say I'm bullying you. I'll give you a week. A week later, we'll have a perfume-blending contest here at Cloudcrest High School. I'll invite renowned perfume experts to judge our creations."

"No need, let's do it tonight."

"No way." Elijah refused hastily with panic in his voice. "This is totally out of the blue! How am I supposed to get a renowned perfume critic on such short notice? And let's get one thing straight. Nobody but top- tier connoisseurs get to smell my perfume."

"Oh, but I heard that world-famous perfume critic, Mrs. Dunhill, just happens to be in Havenwood." Percival said as he lifted his head nonchalantly. "She's here with her international friend, Henry White, a renowned perfume critic from Graslandia. Are they not good enough to judge your perfume?"

"It's not just about the critics; I'll need time to get all my ingredients and equipment ready. Perfume-making is an art that requires inspiration. Only amateurs like you would think something good could be whipped up out of the blue. I said one week, and I meant it!"

Vivienne nodded slightly in agreement. "Alright, you've got a week."

Elijah, for some reason, felt a surge of unease at Vivienne's rapid and confident response.

After a moment of contemplation, he said sternly, "I heard that your late mother was also a perfumer with a lot of perfume recipes left behind. You wouldn't be planning to use her recipes against me, would you?"

"Scared, are you?" Vivienne's eyes twinkled with amusement.

"Absolutely not!"

Vivienne let out a satisfied laugh and then slowly but confidently uttered a warning to Elijah. "Remember, I'm the one doing you a favor here. You're the one who needs the week."

Whispers filled the hall as people pointed at Elijah on the stage.

Everyone could see it. Elijah was scared.

At least in terms of spirit, he had already lost.

Elijah's face went through a range of colors. He cursed himself for letting Arabella get to him and embarrass him like this. He shot Arabella a venomous look before storming off the stage.

Arabella, shocked, hurried after him. As she passed Vivienne, she sneered. "Don't lose too badly, Vivienne."

Just then, Lysander called, apologizing profusely to Vivienne. "I'm so sorry, Vivienne. I didn't expect Elijah to do something like this."

He had a meeting that night and had to leave halfway through his speech, leaving the rest to his staff. As soon as the meeting was over, he heard that Vivienne had been publicly humiliated by Elijah. He was furious, but there was nothing he could do.

"It's fine."

After learning that Elijah was a student of Master Q yesterday, she bought all his perfumes.

She had to admit that they were stunning and unique. But the style was familiar, because it belonged to someone else!

After watching Elijah's retreating figure, her suspicion grew.