Because of a false accusation, she had spent three years in prison.
Her lawyer's license was revoked. She went through hell behind bars.
And now that she was out, the only job she could get was sweeping the streets.
Her life had completely fallen apart since then, and she'd lost way too much.
"Paid the price? You think three years in prison is enough?" Celeste said coldly. "Rachel, my sister is dead. She's never coming back."
"What do you want now?" Rachel asked calmly. She'd already been through the worst. She had nothing left to lose.
Celeste stared at the woman in front of her, wearing that ugly neon orange sanitation uniform.
In just three years, Rachel's long black hair had turned dry and yellowish.
Her face was still kind of pretty, but her almond-shaped eyes were dull, and the hands gripping the broom looked rough and calloused, the kind of hands you get from hard labor.
Celeste still remembered the first time she saw Rachel.
Back then, she had been stunned by how perfect Rachel's hands were, smooth, pale, and polished nails.
The way she held a pen was just... elegant.
But now, those same hands were holding a filthy street broom instead of a fancy pen.
"So your hands aren't totally useless after all," Celeste said with a cold laugh. "Guess I went too easy on you last time."
She said it like Rachel wasn't even human. Just some object she could do whatever she wanted with.
Rachel's body stiffened. Her fingers tightened around the broom.
"Rachel, you and Ralph broke up forever ago," Celeste said, eyes flashing. "Don't embarrass yourself again by trying to crawl back to him for some acting job. If I catch you doing that again, next time, you might not be able to hold anything with your hands ever again."
Just thinking about all those projection ads Ralph had put up to propose to her and how they'd all suddenly disappeared, made Celeste want to tear Rachel apart.
When she found out it was Jeffrey who had them removed, the whole Patel family went into panic mode, like birds scared of thunder.
Nobody knew if Jeffrey had done it because of Camila's death.
At first, she thought Jeffrey showing up to the Patel-Hao engagement party meant he didn't care about their marriage.
But now?
She wasn't so sure anymore.
Rachel just found the whole thing ridiculous. "Then you can say all this to my sister. Don't waste your breath on me. I still have work to do. Please move."
Gloria snapped, "If it weren't for you, do you really think those projection ads of Ralph proposing to Celeste would've been taken down? You ran over and killed Jeffrey's fiancée! Of course he's gonna aim for the Patel family now. And look at you, just casually sweeping the road like it's nothing."
Rachel froze.
[Hey so rachel knows there's two different Jeffrey, camilla's fiancee and her adopted brother >^-^<]
She seriously didn't expect that... Jeffrey was the one who did it?
Jeffrey...
Come to think of it, the last time she got away from Silas was also thanks to him.
That man... he was basically a god in Shen City.
He was in charge of the entire Gray family empire. Nobody dared to cross him.
His words were law in Shen City.
And her and Jeffrey... it really felt like there were so many messed-up, complicated ties between them.
Ralph had dumped her so fast, and not a single lawyer in all of Shen City dared to take her case.
Wasn't that all because of Jeffrey?
She got abused in prison, and the guards just turned a blind eye.
Wasn't that because of Jeffrey too?
Because the person she had hit and killed... was Jeffrey's fiancée.
There was even one time when someone shoved her head into freezing cold water, holding her down until she almost stopped breathing.
She'd never forget that feeling, the pure terror of being so close to death.
And why did stuff like that keep happening to her in prison?
It was all because someone said the Gray Family had spoken, Rachel was gonna suffer in prison.
Everyone who wanted to suck up to Jeffrey basically rushed to trample her.
To torture her like it was some kind of game.
Rachel kept sweeping the street, ignoring all of Gloria's annoying yelling.
Gloria got more and more pissed and looked like she was about to rush over and slap her, but Celeste reached out and stopped her.
"Celeste, this Rachel chick is so full of herself! Let me teach her a lesson!" Gloria snapped.
"Why bother?" Celeste suddenly smiled, her lips curving like she just came up with something fun. "I lost a ring. I'm not sure if it fell around here and got swept away as trash. Looks like we'll have to ask the sanitation team to help find it."
Gloria paused for a second, then realized what Celeste meant.
She smiled right away and said, "Oh yeah, we definitely gotta search carefully. That ring of yours isn't cheap. I'll have to go through every piece of trash here so we don't miss it."
Then Gloria turned to Rachel with a fake sweet smile. "You were just sweeping this area, weren't you? You probably swept the ring into the trash. Why don't you go dig through the bin and find it?"
Rachel stopped moving and just stared at her, eyes cold.
"What are you staring at? Go find it already!" Gloria snapped. "If you can't find it, we'll just say you stole it on purpose!"
Sister Rivera, who was sweeping across the street, saw things getting heated and came over to see what was going on.
Right then, Rachel noticed Celeste pulling out her phone and making a call.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, Sister Rivera got a call from the director, telling them they had to find Celeste's missing ring no matter what.
Rachel pressed her lips together tightly. She knew full well that even if Celeste was just doing all this to humiliate her, she still had no choice.
She had to find that ring.
After a while, the team leader of their department showed up.
When he heard that the lost ring was worth hundreds of thousands, his face changed, and he immediately said to Sister Rivera and Rachel, "What are you waiting for? Go find it, fast! Check all the spots you swept and every trash bin you emptied. That ring must be found!"
"Then we'll just wait in the car," Celeste said casually, flipping her hair like she had all the time in the world. "Let me know when you find it."