Chapter 7: The Real Face of Power

9

Secretary Rao wasn’t exaggerating.

My dad’s always in the country’s top ten richest, runs the biggest entertainment company, and has the most connections.

An actress like Priya isn’t even qualified to attend our family’s Diwali parties.

The reason I wanted to talk to her myself instead of having Secretary Rao handle it directly is because if he stepped in, she’d probably get blacklisted or never get another job.

If I didn’t have to, I didn’t want that to happen.

After all, life’s hard for everyone.

I turned off my phone, sighed, and gave myself a thumbs up.

I really am such a kind soul.

But that afternoon, I slapped myself in the face.

Secretary Rao quickly got me Priya’s number.

I called, and a soft female voice answered: 'Hello? Who is this?'

I calmly said: 'Let me introduce myself. I’m Yashu, the Meera you matched with during your livestreamed game.'

'……'

There was a long silence on the other end.

Then Priya fired off a barrage:

'This is my private number. How did you get it? Did you use illegal means? Do you want me to call the police? What do you want? Isn’t this over? Why are you still pestering me?'

I was speechless for a few seconds, too lazy to answer her silly questions, and just stated my demand:

'Who said it’s over? You deliberately incited your fans to cyberbully me, flamed me in-game and on Insta. Now they’ve even taken over my college’s forum and seriously affected my life. You started it in-game. I want you to clarify things, and you and your fans must apologise to me.'

Priya sneered: 'Seriously, are you alright? Apologise? I’m a public figure, why should I apologise to some broke student? If you want to leech off my fame, just start a livestream. Maybe you’ll even get some hate-fame.'

She finished and hung up on me.

I could hear the faint giggle of some TV anchor in the next room as my anger boiled over, the room suddenly feeling too small, too suffocating.