"Director Ruan, Nianshen absolutely cannot be the true killer of Yuan Ye."
After Wen Nianshen was arrested, the most frantic of all was Pan Er. The others didn't understand Wen Nianshen—but didn't he? Wen Nianshen merely came across as a bit fierce. The Wen family was, on the surface, run by Mr. and Mrs. Wen, but in reality everything behind the scenes was controlled single-handedly by Wen Nianshen.
Having such a clever daughter, the Wen couple simply let her have her way.
Under Wen Nianshen's management, the Wen family grew bigger and bigger, even pushing into many industries that, on the surface, most people knew nothing about. He was Wen Nianshen's confidant, usually helping her handle the trivial matters within this circle.
If you had to name Wen Nianshen's only flaw, it was probably that she was too arrogant—she didn't take anti-fans seriously at all, the kind of arrogance where she'd tear an anti-fan apart with her bare words.
There was one more thing: when she fancied a script, she'd throw money at it like mad to buy it, then play the peerless beauty in it herself. That rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
But say that Wen Nianshen killed someone? Impossible.
Even with some of the filthy affairs in the circle, where evidence could be found, she handled them through legal means. Wen Nianshen absolutely would not touch any borderline limits.
Yuan Ye had indeed been targeting the Wen family lately, but Wen Nianshen definitely had no motive to kill—let alone go and do it with her own hands. Everything here was riddled with suspicious points. At present, the only thing proving Wen Nianshen was a murderer was that video found at the scene, which had captured the entire process of Wen Nianshen committing the murder, crystal clear.
Even the police couldn't make sense of why Wen Nianshen would kill Yuan Ye. She had no mental issues and absolutely no motive.
But whether there was a motive or not, the surveillance video was something Wen Nianshen couldn't wash clean. And as it happened, on the night Yuan Ye died, Wen Nianshen hadn't come to find Director Ruan, nor gone to anyone else—she'd driven back to her villa alone. There was plenty of surveillance outside the villa, but none inside.
And who could prove that the one who drove back was the real Wen Nianshen, and not someone impersonating her precisely to clear her of suspicion?
The surveillance outside Yuan Ye's villa had clearly recorded Wen Nianshen entering the villa complex, walking up to the villa, knocking on Yuan Ye's door—the two of them had even spoken at the doorway. At the time, Yuan Ye had asked, "Wen Nianshen, why are you here?"
In the living room of Yuan Ye's villa, there was a surveillance camera. Yuan Ye was a young master who liked to have fun, often inviting people over to the villa for parties; to avoid trouble, he'd chosen to install a camera in the villa's living room. He probably never imagined that the process of his own murder would be filmed in perfect clarity.
Pan Er had watched that video.
That face, that figure, even the little mannerisms, every piece of jewelry on her body—all of it was Wen Nianshen's.
The only part that didn't seem like Wen Nianshen was probably the eyes—those eyes were too vicious. With a short dagger, the other person had plunged it into the spot over Yuan Ye's heart in one stroke without the slightest hesitation—truly clean and decisive, not a moment's pause. The look in those eyes at that moment was cold and merciless, nothing at all like the Wen Nianshen he knew.
He was quite certain that person was not Wen Nianshen—it had to be someone impersonating her.
The Wen couple were also currently searching for evidence to clear Wen Nianshen of suspicion. But from their grim expressions, Pan Er had already foreseen that it might fail. After turning it over and over in his mind, knowing that A-Xin was close to Wen Nianshen, he'd come to find A-Xin, unsure whether they could find a way to get Wen Nianshen out of this.
The internet was already in an uproar. No one knew who had done it, but someone had actually leaked the video; it had since been deleted online. But with so many netizens, some clever person had long since saved a copy.
The matter grew bigger and bigger, the internet awash with voices demanding Wen Nianshen be dealt with according to the law. Even the box office, which had originally kept climbing for over ten days straight, plunged to the bottom. Wen Nianshen was a murderer—no one would watch this film anymore. The cinemas were also extremely decisive, pulling the film straight off the schedule.
None of that mattered. What mattered was how to get Wen Nianshen out of this.
A-Xin was still watching the video. Seeing the murder play over and over again, Pan Er felt that this Director Ruan might be a bit of a deviant inside—that was a real murder process, after all. The Wen Nianshen in the video hadn't just stabbed Yuan Ye once; she'd even cut off Yuan Ye's lower part.
The Yuan family side would absolutely never let Wen Nianshen off. Pan Er's face was clouded with worry.
"Director Ruan, please say something. Nianshen wouldn't do something like this. I wonder—do you have any ideas?" Director Ruan loved making suspense films; that was one of the reasons he'd come to ask for her help. The other was that Wen Nianshen had said she wanted to see Director Ruan.
A-Xin raised her head and said, "I know it wasn't her."
Pan Er let out a breath of relief. "Then, Director Ruan, Nianshen wants to see you. How about we go see her first?" There was no plan to be thought of right now—he could only satisfy Wen Nianshen's wish first.
He'd gone to see Wen Nianshen earlier, and it wasn't what he'd expected—she'd actually been grinning, which made the people at the station all think she was mentally unstable. How could a normal person still be smiling while bearing the charge of murder? Her behavior had the police wondering whether the test had been wrong, whether Wen Nianshen really did have a mental illness.
"Let's go. Let's see her."
A-Xin turned off the video. She'd watched it no fewer than a hundred times and could already confirm that the one who'd killed Yuan Ye was no ordinary person. The other party had done it too perfectly—and yet had left Wen Nianshen's hair and fingerprints at the scene. This party meant to drive Wen Nianshen to her death. She thought it over carefully: in this small world, apart from having offended a group of netizens, there shouldn't be anyone who'd scheme so meticulously to kill a person and frame Wen Nianshen for it.
If it wasn't hatred, then what was the other party's aim?
When she saw Wen Nianshen, the latter was, as expected, extremely composed. Because she was now a serious offender, she wore handcuffs and leg shackles. With evidence so ample, were it not for the Wen family pulling strings up and down, she'd probably be on trial by now.
"Do you think I killed someone?" Wen Nianshen spoke first, beating A-Xin to it, her expression earnest, a trace of a smile still at the corner of her mouth.
A-Xin gave her a glance. "No."
"Ah, then I'm relieved." Wen Nianshen looked utterly fearless. "I really didn't kill anyone. That night I was sleeping at the villa, having a lovely dream. Of course, no one would believe it if I said so—even with surveillance recording me returning to the villa, they'd all think it was my stand-in. But still—Director Ruan believes me, and that makes me a little happy inside."
"Right now the evidence is ample. You may very well be sentenced to death," A-Xin said, perfectly serious.
Wen Nianshen pressed her lips together and smiled, the tip of her brow lifting slightly. She murmured, "Director Ruan, are you really willing to let me die? Hmm?"
"I know—you can't bear to let me die, can you?"
Pan Er: "..." What was going on here?
"Mm. I'll find the evidence and get you out," A-Xin said.
Wen Nianshen's eyes were all smiles, her expression even happier. "I knew it—you'd surely find a way to save me. After all, you're omnipotent; you'd never stand by and watch me die, right? And even if in the end there's no way to find evidence, you'd break me out of prison and whisk me far away to live on a deserted island, wouldn't you?"
A-Xin: "..."
These words were being monitored by the police. After exchanging glances, their expressions grew a bit more solemn.
"This Ruan Shen needs to be put under surveillance too, in case she goes down the wrong path of breaking Wen Nianshen out of prison. If she searches for evidence legally, we needn't interfere—but the moment she does anything illegal, arrest her at once."
"Yes, sir."
A-Xin stood up and said to Wen Nianshen, "I'll get you out soon and clear your name of this injustice."
"Director Ruan, I believe in your abilities. I'll wait for you to come get me." Wen Nianshen waved her little hand. That attitude—it really could be called utterly unafraid, leaving the people monitoring to think she truly was innocent, that she might even immediately produce evidence that she hadn't killed anyone.
But recalling the video they'd seen, they overturned that thought. They didn't believe that this time Wen Nianshen could clear her name.
Because Yuan Ye's death and the deaths of the victims in that suspense film were exactly alike. Both were a single fatal stab into the heart, followed by several more stabs to other vital areas. The only difference was that the victims in the film hadn't had a certain part cut off.
A-Xin left.
Soon the netizens dug up many things about Wen Nianshen—whether they'd been released by someone with an agenda or genuinely dug up, no one knew. In any case, it was all about Wen Nianshen having signed countless actresses.
Before these actresses were signed, they'd all suffered the harassment of certain wandering hands in the circle, and the unspoken rules. With this information coming out, the netizens came to understand a little why Wen Nianshen would chop off Yuan Ye's thing.
Word was that Yuan Ye had lately been pursuing a rather famous actress, Su Wei. And Su Wei was the one Wen Nianshen had signed.
With Yuan Ye's methods, getting Su Wei should have been easy—she was just a small star, after all. But Su Wei had become Wen Nianshen's person, which bred resentment in Yuan Ye, and he'd begun to set himself against the Wen corporation.
They all believed that Wen Nianshen had killed Yuan Ye out of humiliated rage. Of course, some also guessed that Wen Nianshen and Yuan Ye had something going on, and that it was a crime of passion. There were other guesses too, but reasoning them out, none seemed to hold up. The only one that held up was that Wen Nianshen had chopped off Yuan Ye's thing—she must have detested his philandering.
The crime scene had already been sealed off; neither Pan Er nor A-Xin could go there. Pan Er asked, his brow knit with worry, "Director Ruan, do you really have a way to save Nianshen? She's still young, and apart from being a bit arrogant, she's truly a good girl. There's no way she could kill anyone. If at all possible, please, you must help her." It was only because he'd heard A-Xin's earlier words that he clung to this lifesaving straw and wouldn't let go.
The impact of this affair was too great. If she couldn't get out of it, Wen Nianshen really was finished.
"Don't worry. I'll save her."
Pan Er still couldn't believe it—the situation right now was a dead end. How could he possibly set his mind at ease? After taking his leave of A-Xin, he prepared to go pull more strings elsewhere, hoping to buy a bit more time.
Deep in the night, in A-Xin's room, a white spirit-body drifted out from her body. This spirit-body was clad in a snow-white dress, long hair flowing, and floated straight out the window.
The next instant, A-Xin's spirit-body appeared at the crime scene. Glancing at that patch of blood already dried and blackened, she took out a mirror, formed several hand seals, and let them sink into the mirror. In a flash, her figure drifted into the mirror.
In but a moment, A-Xin appeared once more, and the surroundings had already changed. The living room was noisy with the television, and Yuan Ye, who had already been killed, was sitting on the sofa.
A-Xin simply stood off to one side. Just then, the doorbell rang, and her gaze shifted over. Yuan Ye got up to answer the door, and seeing the person outside, asked in surprise, "Wen Nianshen, why are you here?"
"Why can't I be here? Let's talk inside, shall we?" Wen Nianshen's expression was a little strange, but because she was so beautiful, and given her status, Yuan Ye, despite his doubts, still let her in.
"What did you come to see me about? I haven't done anything excessive to that Su Wei under your name—I was only pursuing her normally. As for competition between enterprises, that's perfectly ordinary."
"I didn't come to see you about that." Wen Nianshen smiled with a touch of allure, and for a moment Yuan Ye was actually struck dumb. At that very moment, she pulled out a short dagger and stabbed straight at Yuan Ye's heart.
Just as the blade was about to pierce Yuan Ye's heart, A-Xin drifted over, gripped Wen Nianshen's wrist directly, and said with a soft laugh, "Caught you. Come with me to the police station and turn yourself in."