An Ru felt like she barely knew Mei Jing at all, at least not this version of Mei Jing. During her previous interaction with Mei Jing, An Ru found Mei Jing to be naive and childish. However, there was nothing remotely childish or naive about the woman before her eyes right then. Before her was an ice queen who radiated coldness from head to toe.
“Here’s the thing. I’m a petty-minded sort of person.” Ah Sha smiled, though her eyes were icy and glacial. “You and I are pretty much strangers. And yet you never even hesitated in doing something that cruel to me, despite the fact that I’m just a stranger to you.”
“Before, I thought you were just confused, and maybe a little bit deluded. I never expected you to be a complete maniac!” Those were the same words that Wan Qingsi had used when An Ru first returned.
An Ru gave Ah Sha a death stare. “You’ve taken Qingsi from me. Yeah, I hired a few thugs to rape you. So what?” An Ru said smugly. “You might’ve escaped this time, but you won’t be so lucky next time.”
An Ru hadn’t once stopped to consider how Ah Sha had escaped from the clutches of those thugs completely unharmed. The fact that Ah Sha had just magically appeared on top of her balcony seemed to have escaped An Ru as well.
“That’s too bad, then!” Ah Sha slowly approached An Ru. “You don’t have the chance to do anything anymore.”
All of a sudden, An Ru found herself paralyzed. “You… What the h.e.l.l have you done to me?”
Ah Sha took out a tiny, red pill and shoved it into An Ru’s mouth. “You’ll know soon enough.”
An Ru stared at Ah Sha, panicking. Then, she felt the pill dissolving in her mouth.
Ah Sha rubbed her hands together a few times and then went back outside to the balcony. She did a backflip and allowed herself to fall off the ledge. As she fell, Ah Sha waved at An Ru. “See you tomorrow! If you can still walk out the door, that is…” Ah Sha’s voice echoed into the night.
Chieftain Mo Lin once said that the cruelest thing a poisoner could do was to keep their victims fully conscious after poisoning them; that way, the victim would be left to experience every horrifying second as the poison took over their body. Such a process would suffice to drive a person out of their mind. That night, this kind h.e.l.lish and excruciating process was exactly what An Ru was put through.
Ah Sha dragged Wan Qingsi out of bed bright and early next morning.
“The police will come to arrest me later! Xunxun, you must protect me, okay?” She said.
Wan Qingsi watched her in amus.e.m.e.nt. “What on earth did you do to that foolish woman?”
“You’ll know in a bit.”
Indeed, their doorbell rang just when they were finishing breakfast.
Wan Qingsi opened the door. Two police officers, one male and the other female, stood at the door.
“Mr. Wan, I’m sorry to disturb you so early in the morning,” the female officer said courteously. “We have some very important questions to ask one of your celebrities, Mei Jing. Can you tell us where we can find her?” #
Wan Qingsi invited the two officers inside. Moments later, the two officers saw Mei Jing sauntering out of the kitchen.
The male officer blushed, and then quickly cleared his throat when his felt Wan Qingsi’s cold gaze on him. “Miss Mei Jing,” the male officer said, “we need to ask you a few questions.”
“Sure. Please, have a seat!” Ah Sha took a seat on the couch. Wan Qingsi walked over and sat down beside her.
The female officer frowned and looked at Ah Sha with both envy and contempt.
Ah Sha ignored the female officer’s stare and turned her attention to the male officer instead. “How can I help you, officer?”
“Do you know An Ru?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that I know her,” Ah Sha said, shaking her head. “We only met twice.”
“And you’d been in an argument with her during the filming yesterday?”
“Yeah. She tripped me up on purpose!” Ah Sha said with a hurt look on her face, rubbing herself deliberately against Wan Qingsi’s side. “Please end your contract with her later, okay? I don’t want to see that woman ever again!”
Wan Qingsi played along and nodded his head like an old pervert. “Fine. I’ll fire her immediately.” Once he was done talking, he even slid his hand up Ah Sha’s thigh for good measure.
A longing look formed on the male officer’s face. The female officer’s gaze on Ah Sha became even more frosty; the woman might as well have a speech bubble drawn beside her head with three words: You shameless b*tch.
The female officer sprang to her feet. “Miss Mei Jing. Last night, you visited An Ru’s house and harmed her physically. Now, we lawfully request that you come down with us to the police station to aid in our investigation.”
Wan Qingsi glowered. “Who said she went to An Ru’s house last night? She was with me the whole night.”
“Mr. Wan, please do not attempt to cover for the suspect. We will conduct a thorough investigation after this and show you the evidence implicating Miss Mei Jing of the crime.” Unlike with Ah Sha, the female officer had used a far gentler tone when she was speaking to Wan Qingsi.
Upon hearing that she was about to be brought away, tears welled up in Ah Sha’s eyes. She threw herself into Wan Qingsi’s arms.
“But I was with you the whole night. We were doing… doing… that,” Ah Sha said. “She’s accusing me of a crime that I didn’t commit!”
The male officer blushed once again. Everyone knew what Ah Sha’s “that” referred to.
Frowning, the female officer stepped forward and reached for Ah Sha’s arm. Wan Qingsi slapped the officer’s hand away. “Without proof, n.o.body is taking her anywhere,” Wan Qingsi growled.
“It isn’t difficult at all to obtain proof,” said the male officer. “Just follow us to the building’s control room and we’ll examine last night’s surveillance footage. That way, we’ll know for sure whether Miss Mei Jing left the building last night.”
Ah Sha shared a look with Wan Qingsi, and then she smiled. “Okay. Let’s go.”
The two officers were utterly flummoxed after the security guard had replayed the surveillance footage from the night before.
“Are you sure the surveillance cameras have no blind spots?” Asked the female officer persistently.
Having been made aware that this inquiry involved Wan Qingsi, the manager of the building’s security team had decided to personally attend to the police officers. The manager seemed rather offended by the female officer’s insinuation. “Of course there aren’t any blind spots. Our apartments are among the best in the city.”
They had gone through the surveillance footages of the building’s main entrance, car park, elevators as well as all of the building’s exits; none of them showed any signs of Mei Jing leaving the building last night. The footage of the main entrance showed Mei Jing entering the building yesterday evening, alone. She had never taken a single step out of the building since. All the footages came with timestamps. Half an hour after Mei Jing had entered the building, they saw Wan Qingsi rushing into the elevator.
“Is that enough proof to show that the both of us have been together for the whole night?” Ah Sha blinked back at the officers. Redness crept up the male officer’s face once again. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
The female officer was interrupted mid-sentence by the ringing of her phone. She picked it up and pressed the receiver to her ear. The officer seemed annoyed at whatever that she had been told over the phone. She hung up and said, “Pardon us for the interruption.”
“What is it?” Asked the male officer.
“That was Chief Chen. There are no signs of Mei Jing at the other apartment building as well.”
An Ru was staying on the 28th floor. Mei Jing couldn’t have grown wings and flown up there, could she now?
“Officer,” Wan Qingsi called out at the male officer. “Can you tell me what happened to An Ru? She’s a celebrity that our company represents, after all.”
“Oh, sure,” the officer said. The officer seemed rather traumatized by his knowledge of what happened. “She lost her voice. And she’s… she’s disfigured.”
In the hospital, An Ru was kicking up a tremendous fuss. She couldn’t yell or speak (she had lost her voice), so she opted for smashing everything within her reach to pieces. Once she had calmed down, she pulled out her phone and logged on to her Weibo to make a post. She even took a photo of her bandaged face and posted it on Weibo.
Meanwhile, Ah Sha returned to the movie set to continue the filming. After dropping her off at the set, Wan Qingsi returned to the company. He didn’t even make it into the building before he was surrounded by a huge crowd of reporters.
“President Wan, An Ru claimed on Weibo that it was Mei Jing who had disfigured her. Are you planning to get justice for An Ru?”
“President Wan, will Stars Entertainment terminate its contract with Mei Jing if she really turns out to be the perpetrator?”
Qi Xiu ran out from inside the building to hold back the reporters. Wan Qingsi stepped onto the landing and faced the sea of reporters. “Mei Jing was with me the whole night. There was no way she could’ve gone to An Ru’s place.”
That declaration drove the reporters into a state of frenzy. No wonder they hadn’t been able to figure out where Mei Jing was staying; the two of them had been staying at the same place this whole time.
“The police have already approached us regarding this matter, and we’ve reached an understanding,” Wan Qingsi said. “Mei Jing is still in the middle the movie’s filming.” There was a pregnant pause. “With that, I hope I’ve made myself clear.” Wan Qingsi turned around and walked into the elevator.
After completing the laborious task of sending the reporters away, Qi Xiu rushed into Wan Qingsi’s office all sweaty and exhausted. “Couldn’t you have picked a better time to reveal your cohabitation to the public? Do you want to work me to death?”
“Bring the contract the An Ru. We’ll be ending our contract with her.”
“Seriously?” Qi Xiu shook his head ruefully. “We’ve invested quite a sum on her, though. We didn’t even have the chance to earn back our investment!”
Wan Qingsi glanced at Qi Xiu. “She can’t even speak now, let alone sing.”
“But the public would accuse us of being cowards who pour salt on An Ru’s wounds instead of being supportive of her. Her fans would rebuke us for being unethical. The whole thing might even negatively impact Mei Jing.”
Qi Xiu knew that Mei Jing was right at the top of Wan Qingsi’s list of priorities right now. Bringing in Mei Jing was the only way he could convince Wan Qingsi to drop the idea.
“She can’t do her job in the state that she’s in, right? Why don’t we just let her be for now?”
Wan Qingsi pondered Qi Xiu’s suggestion briefly before nodding.
An Ru’s post on Weibo had soon garnered her a lot of support from her fans; on the other hand, Mei Jing’s official Weibo account was filled with nasty messages from angry An Ru’s fans. Zhou Na rushed back to the company for a five-minute meeting with Qi Xiu. After that, they both went on Weibo and began repairing the damage done to Mei Jing’s PR.
In an interview with the reporters, the police released a statement saying that Mei Jing had nothing to do with the a.s.sault on An Ru.
Qi Xiu had even released two lengthy videos containing the video surveillance footages of Wan Qingsi’s apartment building. Amidst the fiasco, an observant netizen realized that: news flash, Wan Qingsi and Mei Jing had been staying together all this while! This time around, a lot of people began turning their attention towards this new piece of gossip; An Ru’s accident soon fell by the wayside.
At the hospital, An Ru had seen the shift in the public’s attention as well. She cried hard, but no sound came out. The bandaged on her face, on the other hand, was drenched with her tears. The wetness stung, making her skin itchy and painful at the same time. At one point, she felt an urge to scratch the skin off her own face.
Tang Yue reblogged the surveillance videos on her own Weibo. She even included several emoticons in support of Mei Jing. After that, she tossed her phone aside.
“I don’t understand why you’re taking her side, Sister Yue. She’s living with the boss now, you know?” Xiao Zhao pa.s.sed a cup of coffee to Tang Yue. “I really don’t get the boss at all. You’re so much better than her, but why did the boss…”
“Stop with that nonsense.” Tang Yue glared. “The boss is just my senior. The man I want is Second Young Master Wen.”
Xiao Zhao dared not say anything else after that. Deep down, however, she was grumbling to herself. “That Second Young Master Wen has been missing for nearly half a year,” she thought. “You can’t even be sure if he still remembers you…”
“An Ru is done for. It doesn’t matter whether or not her voice is recoverable. Stars Entertainment will never use her again,” Tang Yue said with a lazy drawl and she cast a glance at Depp, who was now engaged in an animated conversation with Ah Sha. A wave of uneasiness rose to her throat.
Depp’s att.i.tude towards her was polite; cordial, at best. But with Ah Sha, Depp always seemed so enthusiastic, as if they were close friends.
After a moment of thought, Xiao Zhao seemed to have picked up what it was that Tang Yue was insinuating. “She tried to frame Mei Jing. The boss will most likely end the contract with her.”
“How do you know she’s framing Mei Jing? She might be telling the truth for all we know!” Tang Yue took a sip of coffee. “An Ru isn’t a fool. She didn’t have to frame Mei Jing and suffer the wrath of Stars Entertainment. She must’ve had a good for doing so.”
“Ah!” Xiao Zhao covered her mouth in disbelief. “Are you saying that Mei Jing really is the culprit?”
Tang Yue didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and rested her mind. Xiao Zhao dared not asked any more questions after that. She draped a sweater on her shoulder and stood quietly to one side.
“The attack is most likely Wan Qingsi’s doing,” Tang Yue thought.
That year at Caesar Academy, a boy was hospitalized by Wan Qingsi after he made a comment about Ah Sha not being related to the Ying family by blood. The injury that the boy suffered was so great that it took him more than half a year to recover. Apparently, the boy’s family went into bankruptcy as well. Everyone knew the lengths Wan Qingsi would go through for Ah Sha’s sake.
“What a fool.” Once again, Tang Yue regarded An Ru with nothing but disdain. She wasn’t sure if Wan Qingsi’s feelings for Mei Jing were real. But at least for now, it was clear that Wan Qingsi was very protective of her. Heck, he even went as far as living together with her. And yet An Ru had the b.a.l.l.s to frame Mei Jing. That woman really had a death wish.
The next day, An Ru’s disfigurement as well as Wan Qingsi’s cohabitation with Mei Jing were all over the newspapers. Even the Hong Kong press had dedicated an entire page to it. After breakfast, Lin Musheng caught a glimpse of the newspaper. Suddenly, his eyes shone brightly.
“Long Hu, call the old man!”