Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The moment your fake ledger full of get-rich fantasies vanished, you knew it.
The show was about to start.
A single post blew up the campus gossip forum at Blackwood Academy: the scholarship kid, Lena Hart, was secretly the Sterling heiress.
In your ledger, “KFC feast” had been reinterpreted as some kind of multinational restaurant deal. “Grinding coins in a game” had somehow become a multi-billion-dollar esports investment. Even the handmade gift you’d listed for your dad had been twisted into proof that it matched Mr. Sterling’s birthday.
And just like that, the three rich heirs who ruled the school lost their minds trying to seduce you, all because they wanted a marriage alliance.
They thought you’d been blocked from the forum, so they bragged there every day in private threads, competing like idiots, betting on who would win you first and walk away with shares from the others’ family companies.
The whole time, you played dumb. You kept acting like a fragile innocent girl being toyed with, and calmly played three guys at once.
Oh, and one more thing.
You were not the Sterling heiress.
They thought you were the prey.
What they didn’t know was that you had always been a born performer with a vicious sweet tooth for drama.
So, rich boys—ready for your required course in how ugly people can really be?
Ever since you were little, you’d known there was something deeply wrong with you.
Or maybe deeply right.
You were a natural drama queen. Roleplay was your favorite thing in the world.
In elementary school, you went with the genius-student persona. You wore thick black glasses, haunted the teachers’ office every day with questions, and moved them all to tears with your apparent dedication.
Then finals came out.
You ranked fifth from the bottom in the entire school.
In middle school, you reinvented yourself as an edgy delinquent girl. Whenever a teacher came looking for smokers, you’d bolt on sight. One particularly responsible teacher chased you around the track eight full laps.
When they finally searched you, all they found were three lollipops.
The advice your parents got most often from your teachers was simple: your daughter should become an actress. Making her study was a waste of the wrong kind of talent.
So when high school came around, you got into Blackwood Academy as the top arts applicant on a special exception basis and became the only scholarship kid in the whole school.
You immediately locked onto a new carefully crafted persona:
stubborn underdog.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2
To stay in character, you checked the campus gossip forum every day, mostly to admire the hideous faces of the wealthy and help yourself sink deeper into the role.
Then one day, as usual, you logged on—and a pinned post caught your eye so fast it practically clawed at your throat.
[I found the “scholarship girl’s” ledger. And it exposes who she really is.]
The likes and comments were skyrocketing. A moderator had welded it to the top of the page.
Your heart dropped.
Because you did, in fact, have another hobby.
You liked making fake accounts.
Not bank accounts. More like fake bookkeeping.
Hadn’t every success guru on earth said manifestation worked? So every time you tracked your spending, you’d exaggerate things a little, just to suggest to the universe that one day you’d really be that rich.
It wasn’t hurting anyone.
But your stubborn-underdog persona absolutely would not be doing something like that.
Crap.
Was your image about to collapse?
You opened the thread so fast your fingers almost slipped.
The first line in the post read:
[This post has been hidden from the “scholarship girl,” so don’t worry. Speak freely.]
You stared.
Well… that would have mattered if you actually used your main account.
But you surfed the forum on an alt.
Which meant every bit of their little conspiracy was visible to you.
As the original poster kept replying, the whole thing finally made sense.
[The reason I put “scholarship girl” in quotes is because she’s faking it. Her real identity is the only daughter of the Sterling family.]
[This is absolutely true. I showed the ledger to at least ten people, including adults in my family, and we all came to the same conclusion—only the Sterlings could afford the kind of expenses written in it, and every so-called transaction lines up perfectly with their business interests.]
…
You froze.
What?
The Sterling heiress?
They meant you?
The original poster had attached several screenshots of the ledger, complete with detailed annotations underneath.
“See this line? ‘On the third, discussed a food partnership with an international company. Expenses withheld.’ Remember that? One of the Sterling family’s restaurant brands signed a collab with a foreign cartoon franchise on the third.”
I rolled my eyes so hard they almost hurt.
The truth was, I’d saved up for days just to buy myself KFC. It had cost me forty-three dollars, and I’d been in such pain over spending it that I hadn’t even wanted to write it down properly.
Then came another one:
“‘On the fifteenth, entered the esports sector. Investing several billion as a small starter goal.’ There have been rumors forever that the Sterlings wanted to combine AI with a holographic gaming pod project. I can’t believe it’s real!”
I almost laughed out loud.
Chapter 3
Chapter 3
What I’d actually done was take a side gig grinding someone else’s gaming account. The “several billion” part wasn’t wrong, technically. It had just all been in game currency.
Then the grand finale:
“Most importantly: ‘Dad’s birthday. Made his gift by hand. Cost nothing, but the sincerity was priceless.’ Mr. Sterling’s birthday was that exact day, and he even posted a photo of a handwritten card from his daughter.”
“The richest family’s daughter is named Vivian Sterling. The scholarship kid is named Lena Hart. There is no way the world is that coincidental. There’s only one explanation—she’s pretending!”
I rubbed my chin and fell into thought.
The post was so confident it almost had me doubting myself. Was it possible my dad had secretly been faking poverty this whole time just to mess with me?
I immediately texted him to ask.
He replied in seconds:
If you’re sick, go to a hospital.
If you’re dreaming, go to sleep.
If you’re bored, go date somebody.
Stop harassing me.
I stared at the screen.
…Yeah. No one without authentic broke-people DNA could roast me that cleanly.
So there was only one possibility left.
They had the wrong person. Spectacularly wrong.
I had never heard of the Sterling family in my life.
Now, dried pork jerky? That I did have a few slices of in my bag.
Meanwhile, the comments section had already split into factions.
First came the self-righteous crowd:
“This is hilarious. So what if she’s a Sterling heiress? My family isn’t exactly lacking either, okay?”
“Seriously? What century is this? Why is everyone acting so shamelessly money-hungry? Like being the richest girl in the country is some huge honor. Who cares?”
“Couldn’t be me. If you people want to act like lapdogs, go ahead. I’m not licking anyone’s boots.”
Of course, there were even more of the other type—the ones who immediately started fantasizing.
“So what if she’s a Sterling heiress? She’s still a woman. Marry her, problem solved. Her family’s money will be mine sooner or later.”
“If she won’t marry, then just knock her up first. Easy. My mom taught me that one. Works every time.”
“No wonder nobody’s heard any recent news about Vivian Sterling. She’s been hiding at our school. That’s basically gift-wrapped and delivered to my bed. Watch me lock her down.”
Then someone dropped the real bomb:
“Save it. The heirs from the three big families have already made it public—she’s their prey. Whoever sleeps with her first wins. The other two are supposed to put up shares from their own companies as the wedding prize.”
“Yeah, yeah! They’re updating the forum in real time, and we can vote. No matter which heir wins, supporters get rewards. We get gossip and money? This is going to be amazing.”
“Ha! They’re really going all in. So even the richest man’s daughter is still just a toy for those three. Can’t wait for the pregnancy pics.”
…
Every last one of them was disgusting.