Spoiled by Eight Uncles (Lily)

After Lilly left her house, Alban couldn’t hold himself in the same spot, and walked around the perimeter of the Crawford Manor.

Through the iron gate of the back garden, he could vaguely see the old man of the Crawford family, that is Hugh, practicing some Tai Chi. As Alban was just about to turn around and leave, he stopped suddenly, and stared at the ink bamboo painting behind Hugh.

It was something out of the ordinary! Alban was astonished by what he saw. The painting glistened in fractured rays under the sunlight. The light rays were like layers of magical haloes, shrouding around Hugh's body.

Hugh, despite his age, was full of energy and had rosy cheeks. That was not normal for the average old man! Alban pursed his lips. It seemed like this painting was brought back from the underworld by Lilly.

Other people would be afraid of the underworld, but Alban was not one of them. He realized that the underworld is just another realm that was similar to the one he was in, just in a different style. Where Earth of was short of resources, the underworld was abundant of treasures.

Treasures just like this painting. If he could train under its powers, it would make his life so much easier...

Alban clenched his fists, and felt unhealthy thoughts coming to his head. But after thinking about it, his powers were indeed just so, that Lilly was much stronger than him. It was normal for him to feel inferior to her.

And so, with that thought, Alban left.

Instead, he decided to go to Lilly’s school and wait for her there.

She already knew that he was waiting for her. All he had to do was just to express his sincerity.

Lilly went straight to her teacher's office after getting to school.

Cheryl took the long way round, deliberately passing by not far from the Mathematics Department office.

She saw Lilly and another student inside, paying attention to what their teacher was telling them.

Usually though, one school would send one representative to participate in such competitions. But there was two of them there.

It's not a mystery that Lilly was there as a gilded token participant, and the real contestant was the other student! Cheryl was disgruntled. She thought about how if her family was just as rich, she wouldn't have had to work tirelessly. If only her father wasn't as unmotivated as he was now.

Even when her mother planned to visit Bettany at the Crawford home, she didn’t end up going after hearing that Bettany was fine.

When would the Miller family be just as wealthy? She thought about how hard she had to hustle since middle school and now in high school, as compared to Lilly who didn’t have to do much but still get the attention from everyone around her. It was a depressing thought for Cheryl.

So she went back to her classroom, laid her head on the table and started to cry.

Her classmates were perplexed by the sounds of her muffled cries.

But no one wanted to console her. After the weekend, everyone went home and told their families about the incident during the exam.

And all their families told them the exact same thing: stay away from Cheryl Miller! Only a few of Cheryl's best friends went up to her worryingly and asked: “What's wrong, Cheryl? Why are you crying?” She sobbed, and said softly: “It's nothing...” “I just feel that I'm really useless...” “I just saw the ones who were going to the mathematics competition getting ready to leave, and | realized how bad at school | am...” Although Cheryl said it as soft as she could, everyone around her heard it.

Sheer silence.

“It's just a stupid competition! It's for students in the lower grade! All of the participants nationwide are in the third grade and below!” “Why do you want to compare yourself to others?” “Exactly... You didn’t even participate when we were in third grade! Why didn’t you cry at the time?” “Pfft, she just wants to compare herself with other peoples little sisters. | didn’t know that she was this petty. Comparing herself with them and calling herself useless.” The chatter went around the room, and into Cheryl's ears. Her eyes became even redder.

Only her best friend Eliana defended her in a burst of anger. “What are all of you doing? We're supposed to help each other as students! It's one thing not to comfort Cheryl but making sarcastic remarks too?” Josh let out a cold snort.

“Yo yo yo, is this just sarcastic talk?” He chimed in with the swagger of a rich playboy.

“Comparing yourself with a third grader, and you aren't even the better one! Isn't it clear that you are indeed the useless one?” Cheryl couldn't hold it in longer and let out a big cry.

“Shut up Josh! You are being too mean to her!” Eliana responded furiously.

Josh chuckled. “What's the matter? If | really felt useless and ashamed... | would just hide somewhere and cry. She came to cry in the middle of the classroom, isn’t that to just let everyone know that she’s useless?” His eyes were filled with disdain with a slight hint of coldness. “She asked for it.” It was wrong to laugh at someone at their lowest, but who said it wasn’t rewarding? Cheryl came to the classroom to cry, was not to let others think that she was the weak one, but to ruin their good impression of Lilly. It was just apparent — Cheryl just isn’t the top of her class.

And as an elder brother, he had to step on Cheryl just to protect his little sister, how dare he?! Cheryl didn’t manage to flatter him at all. And after making a big fuss and crying so many times now, she has earned the reputation of being a jerk instead.

Eliana just thought that Josh was being incredibly mean. So what if he was handsome? His shortness in height certainly didn’t make up for it either! And being so mean and sarcastic towards his own classmate, was so annoying! He must not had thought that he was cool for doing that, would he? Ugh, what an egomaniac!