Bound by the Past, Locked by the Heart novel Chapter 130

Sitting in front of her laptop, Willa started laughing, and then, out of nowhere, tears spilled down her cheeks.

After having a good cry, she wiped her face and dived back into editing the third video.

When she woke up the next morning, her direct messages were completely flooded.

Brands were reaching out for sponsorships, and small business owners were asking her to feature their stores in her videos.

She added the business owners on WeChat and was in the middle of scheduling interviews when a message from Sophie popped up.

[Wills, do you realize you went viral?]

Willa was utterly confused. [What are you talking about?]

Sophie immediately fired off a social media link.

Willa clicked it. It was her first video, and it already had over 20,000 retweets.

She scrolled through the comments and suddenly noticed a few that stood out from the rest.

[I've been following this series forever! I used to read the text version on another platform, but it stopped updating for some reason. I can't believe the author actually made a video version herself. This is amazing.]

[The creator used to be the Editor-in-Chief at Starlight Media. The series was killed by corporate because it dug into a demolition project.]

[Demolition? Which project?]

[The South City urban renewal project. Handled by Vanguard Properties.]

[Vanguard Properties must have insane connections. Starlight Media is massive, and they just axed it like that?]

...

Willa's heart started hammering against her ribs.

She never expected anyone to dig up the truth, let alone start openly discussing Vanguard Properties in the comments.

She kept scrolling until she found a highly upvoted comment.

[Does the name Vanguard Properties sound super familiar to anyone else? I think they were the developers for The Empyrean Towers. That site had a massive accident—it collapsed and three workers died. But after that... the story just vanished?]

[!!! That rings a bell. It was years ago.]

[Does anyone know what actually happened with that case?]

*The Vanishing Shops and the Stories Left Behind*

If those shops were destined to disappear, she wanted to make sure they were remembered before the wrecking balls arrived.

If the audience took it upon themselves to dig deeper, that was entirely out of her hands.

Willa typed the final sentence, saved the document, and shut down her laptop.

Before she knew it, almost half a month had slipped by, and the third video in her vintage series was officially live.

Sophie never mentioned Randal again.

They were two parallel lines that had briefly intersected, now drifting back onto their own separate paths, never to cross again.

That afternoon, Willa visited a thirty-year-old tailor shop in the old district for a scheduled interview.

She filmed for nearly two hours and chatted extensively with the master tailor about the upcoming demolition before finally packing up.

As she walked out of the alley, the evening breeze carried a sharp chill. Willa instinctively pulled her coat tighter, but suddenly, her footsteps faltered.

That chilling, familiar sensation of being watched crept up her spine once again.