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Slandered on My Wedding Day
NovelShort
Hoàn thành
On my wedding day, I posted a video online. Someone commented: *Aren't you Girl Number Nine? Found yourself a sucker to marry already? Congratulations, congratulations.* My husband and his family saw ...
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第1章
1: 1
On my wedding day, I posted a video online.
Someone commented: *Aren't you Girl Number Nine? Found yourself a sucker to marry already? Congratulations, congratulations.*
My husband and his family saw it.
They asked me what it was about. I said I didn't know the person.
But the way they looked at me still carried doubt.
I messaged the man privately, and he said he was doing the world a service.
That night, I went through every inch of his profile.
Comment by comment, photo by photo.
I stayed up the whole night and finally dug out his name, his phone number, and his company address.
Early the next morning, I bought a train ticket and went straight to his company.
And when he saw me sitting in his boss's office...
His legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees...
1
Ten thousand views, ninety-eight likes, twenty comments.
Nineteen of those comments were wishing us a long and happy life.
Only one said: *Aren't you that Girl Number Nine? Found a sucker to marry you? Congratulations, congratulations.*
My husband saw that comment.
He shoved his phone right up to my face.
"You're Girl Number Nine?"
I said: "He's making it up."
His face went dark. "Then why isn't he posting that garbage under anyone else's comments?"
"Cynthia Mason, you'd better explain yourself."
It grated on me. Being slandered by a stranger was one thing.
Now even my husband didn't believe me.
"He really is making it up. I don't know him!"
Theodore Chavez, my husband, still looked at me with suspicion.
Theodore and I met through a matchmaking setup.
Before that, I'd been working in Los Angeles the whole time.
As I got older, my body just couldn't keep up with the round-the-clock hours anymore.
So I buckled down and tested into a civil-service position back in my hometown.
Right now I work at the community affairs office.
Nine to five, weekends off.
My first month home, my mother pulled some strings and introduced me to Theodore.
Theodore is an engineer. After graduating, he stayed in our hometown the whole time.
His last girlfriend was from college.
They broke up because she didn't want to move back home with him.
The two of us got along well in every way.
After dating for a year, we got engaged and married.
I never thought this kind of thing would happen on our wedding day.
Theodore sat on the wedding bed for a while, then got up and went out.
He said: "I'm going out for some air."
I knew he still didn't believe me.
I opened the stranger's profile.
And discovered he was a teacher.
His page was full of videos about his students and clips from his classes.
I opened the private message box.
*I don't know you. Why are you spreading lies about me online? Now my husband suspects me. You need to apologize to me, and you need to set things straight with my husband.*
After sending it, I got up to wash up.
By the time I came back, he'd replied.
*What's with the act? I already recognized you! You used to work at Nightfall in Los Angeles. Girl Number Nine.*
*I even booked you before!*
*Nice work, too!*
Followed by a snickering sticker.
I was stunned.
I had worked in Los Angeles, that much was true, but I'd never heard of any place called Nightfall.
*You're talking nonsense. I never worked anywhere like that.*
That got him going.
*Never worked there? Then how do I have a photo of you?*
He sent over a very blurry shot of a woman from behind.
*That's not me!*
*You say it's not you, so it's not you?*
*Better your husband knows. Consider it me doing the world a service!*
The more he typed, the more worked up he got.
*I hate you nightclub women most of all. Party hard when you're young, then go dump your used self on some decent man to pick up when you're old!*
*Did your husband dig up your family's graves or kill your father? Why else would you ruin him like this!*
*My advice is come clean to your husband about your past right now and beg his forgiveness.*
*Though I doubt any man is big-hearted enough to take in a whore, don't you think?*
Followed by another hand-over-mouth sticker.
第2章
2: 2
I was shaking with rage.
My fingers around the phone had gone slightly white.
*I've never done that kind of work! This is slander. I can sue you!*
*Go ahead and sue! I'm just telling the truth!*
He went offline.
There was a knot of anger stuck in my chest, and I couldn't swallow it or force it out.
Then another notification popped up on TikTok.
I tapped it.
My mother-in-law had posted three question marks under that comment.
The next second, Theodore pushed the door open.
His face was full of fury.
"My mom saw that comment, and now she's asking me what's going on!"
"Cynthia, tell me, what am I supposed to say to my mother?"
He said it through gritted teeth, glaring at me.
My eyes went red at once.
"Theodore, someone is slandering me! I never did anything like that!"
"If you don't believe me, ask Lois James. She worked with me in Los Angeles. She knows exactly what I did there."
"Ha!" Theodore sneered.
"You two are close friends. Of course she'll take your side!"
He looked me up and down, like he was looking at a piece of garbage.
"I'm sleeping in the guest room tonight."
And with that, he turned and walked out.
I looked at all the red around me.
On the bed, the quilt embroidered with the double-happiness character.
Above the headboard, the wedding photo of me and Theodore.
On the window, the static cling stickers that read "A Hundred Years of Harmony."
Even the bathroom mat was red.
Suddenly this whole wedding felt like a joke.
Tears fell in big drops onto the back of my hand.
I didn't know how to explain.
No matter how I explained, none of them would believe me.
All because of one stranger's lie online.
The happy life that had just begun was already shattered.
My phone rang. I picked it up and looked. It was my mom.
I wiped at my tears in a hurry, answered, and tried to make my voice sound a little more normal.
"Mom."
"Cyn, that thing..."
My mom started, then stopped.
"I saw the video you posted, and there's a comment underneath saying something about an escort."
"Your mother-in-law just called me too. Cyn, is there something you've been keeping from me?"
Even my mom had seen that comment.
"Mom!" I practically shouted it.
"I didn't!"
"Didn't you come to my shared apartment in Los Angeles? You and Dad came to my company to pick me up!"
"I worked in administration in Los Angeles. You both know that, don't you?"
"Even you don't believe me?"
I cried harder, my shoulders shaking and shaking, unable to stop.
"No, no, Mom doesn't doubt you!"
"Silly girl, I was just asking. Why are you crying now!"
"Don't cry, don't cry. Mom believes you, I believe you!"
"If you didn't do it, then why would that person say something like that in the comments?"
Exactly! I didn't understand it either!
He and I didn't even know each other.
There was no reason for him to come under my video and leave a comment like that.
Was he doing it deliberately, to ruin me like this?
My mom comforted me a little and told me not to think about it too much.
And at the end, she added.
"Just delete the video. It's not good for so many people to see it."
My mom still didn't believe me.
The call ended, and I lay down on the wedding bed.
Theodore and I had dated for a year, but we had never slept together.
He was fairly traditional and minded premarital sex a little.
When a man himself suggests waiting until after marriage, of course I was pleased.
It meant he respected me.
It was the first time for both of us, and we especially treasured our wedding night.
I never imagined that one offhand line from a stranger.
Would shatter that happiness, that anticipation.
I opened his profile and started going through his videos, one by one.
I wanted to see exactly what this man hiding behind the screen really looked like!
第3章
3: 3
I opened his profile again and started from his very first video.
His tenth video was filmed at his graduation.
The full name of the school was right there in plain view.
The caption read 【Finally graduated~ officially a working adult now~】
Scrolling further down, one video showed a medical-test photo from the mask era.
His surname was printed on it.
Whitney, and two more characters blacked out.
Three characters in all.
So I opened my laptop.
I went to the homepage of his school, and pulled up every graduate from his year.
I searched for an hour.
Finally, going by the IP and the profile details, I narrowed it to two suspicious names.
One was Oscar Whitney. The other was Amos Whitney.
This Amos was clearly a girl.
But I couldn't be certain the person spreading the rumor was a man.
So I kept going through his videos.
The twentieth video was a rant.
【Girls these days are so materialistic. First thing out of their mouths is twenty grand in wedding gifts. Is this a marriage or are they selling off their daughters!】
From that alone, I was almost sure.
The person had to be a man.
Which ruled Amos out.
I glanced up at the time.
Two in the morning.
My eyelids were already fighting me, and I couldn't stop yawning.
I got up and went to the bathroom to splash water on my face.
Then I went out to pour myself a glass of water.
Passing the guest room, I heard faint snoring coming from inside.
Theodore was already asleep.
I was still hunting for the person who slandered me, and he was already asleep.
I stood outside the guest room door for three seconds.
And I started thinking about this marriage.
Theodore was my husband, the man meant to stand by me through the rest of my life.
Faced with a stranger spreading lies about me,
his first reaction was to interrogate me.
His second was to run.
He'd chosen to leave me to face someone else's slander alone.
He couldn't even hold his ground against his own mother's questions.
Could a man like this weather anything with me?
I was starting to doubt it.
I made myself a cup of instant coffee.
I carried it back to the room and kept digging.
The thirtieth video was two movie tickets.
So I opened a map and searched for local movie theaters.
Using the theater as the center, I searched for every school within a twelve-mile radius.
Then I checked the teacher listings one by one.
By four in the morning, I finally found it in one school's public roster.
The name Oscar Whitney.
To make sure my information was accurate,
I searched for that school's page on social media.
I scrolled for an hour.
Finally, in an April 7, 2025 post about outstanding teachers,
I found Oscar Whitney's name.
At the end there was a photo.
One glance was all it took to know which one was Oscar Whitney.
It was only a guess.
But I was certain.
Near enough dead-on.
I opened the ticketing app right then and booked the earliest train to Phoenix.
By the time I finished, the sky was just beginning to lighten.
I was still wearing my red toasting dress.
I hadn't even had the chance to take the pins out of my hair.
The train left at six.
I didn't even have time to sleep.
I pulled the ornaments out of my hair.
Washed my hair, showered, changed into clean clothes.
And I realized I wasn't the least bit tired.
If anything, I felt a little exhilarated.
第4章
4: 4
I was about to come face to face with the person who'd spread the lies about me.
I had to ask him myself: why had he slandered me under my wedding video?
What had I ever done to him?
I hardly ever posted videos. The wedding one was the only clip that had cracked ten thousand views.
Everything else barely scraped a few hundred.
When I picked up my things and stepped out, the door to the spare room was still shut.
Theodore hadn't woken up yet.
This time I didn't stop.
Downstairs, I hailed a cab and went straight to the train station.
I ate breakfast at the KFC in the station.
The ride was two hours. I let my eyes close for a little while.
When the announcement came on, I got up slowly and followed the crowd toward the doors.
It was almost nine by the time I reached Phoenix.
Theodore should have been awake by now, but there wasn't a single message on my phone.
He'd seen I wasn't home and hadn't even sent one line.
Gripping my phone, I got into a cab and went straight to Oscar Whitney's school.
The guard was an old man of about sixty. Seeing me at the gate, he asked who I was looking for.
I said, "Oscar Whitney. Teacher Whitney."
He looked me up and down. "What do you want with Teacher Whitney?"
I said, "I want to ask him why he's been spreading lies about me online."
The old man paused, then opened the gate.
I said, "Sir, how do I get to the principal's office?"
He raised a hand and pointed at the building right in front.
"Third floor, 302. But the principal might not be in. You can try the academic affairs office, 201 on the second floor."
"Okay, thank you."
Clutching the printouts, I headed straight for the principal's office.
The principal was in, and so was the dean of academic affairs.
I knocked, walked in, and set everything down in front of the principal.
"Teacher Oscar Whitney posted lies under my wedding video claiming I was Girl Number Nine at an escort service. Now my husband wants a divorce."
The principal's face went dark in an instant.
He picked up the papers and leafed through them.
Then he took out his phone and made a call.
Ten minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
A man in a black polo shirt and round-framed glasses pushed it open.
The moment he saw me, he froze where he stood.