The news of Yang Yinyin’s suicide shocked the entire entertainment industry.
“Mr. Lu, as the manager of Miss Yang Yinyin, what do you think of her suicide last night? Were there any signs beforehand?”
“It’s been said that when she was filming her last movie before her death, she suddenly had to stop because she felt unwell. Did her physical and mental health start deteriorating from that moment on?”
As soon as Shao Si turned on the TV, the screen was filled with a flood of reporters, all desperately stretching out their arms and trying to outdo one another to surround the man in the middle.
Lu Jiahui, Yang Yinyin’s manager, currently 38 years old.
He has a buzz cut and a square face, looking like a simple and honest person. But now, his head is lowered, his face showing a sorrowful expression, and he is clearly unwilling to discuss this topic with the reporters.
The reporters would follow him as he walked, surrounding him in a circle.
Until Lu Jiahui finally had no choice but to stop walking. He took off his sunglasses, revealing a pair of swollen, red eyes.
“Yinyin, her mental health hasn’t been very good since the past few years… her depression became more and more severe,” Lu Jiahui commented. “But she didn’t want to worry her fans and family, so she always kept it to herself.”
Countless camera flashes pointed at him while the arms of the reports stretched out longer and longer. “So Miss Yang Yinyin chose to commit suicide because of depression, is that right?”
Lu Jiahui put his sunglasses back on, waved his hand to indicate he didn’t want to continue speaking, quickened his pace to get into the car with his assistant, and left.
The reporters reluctantly continued snapping photos of the car’s tail lights. With their backs facing the fresh exhaust from the departing vehicle, some live broadcast hosts concluded with a final statement, “It’s truly regrettable that a generation leading female star ends up in such a tragedy. May the deceased rest in peace. We will continue to follow up on this story in the future, so you can scan the QR code in the lower right corner to follow our program’s public WeChat account…”
Shao Si raised his hand and turned off the TV.
The System sighed mournfully: [Ahh, she’s dead.]
Shao Si: […Are you feeling very sad?]
[Extremely sad, but based on how it’s done in TV dramas, you should sneak into Yang Yinyin’s home tonight to look for clues.]
[Sneaking in like an idiot?]
[I can’t talk to you,] the System said, [always randomly trampling on my detective dreams.]
[Fine, I won’t be so random then.] Shao Si sat up, [Yang Yinyin’s home is now the primary crime scene, it’s guarded by the police and the entire building is sealed off for investigation. Why would I go there? To die?]
[…]
Shao Si added: [Don’t watch so many brainless dramas in the future, you’re not far from being stupid.]
Shao Si originally thought that this would be the end of the situation, and he and the broken system already planned to find a new mission target…
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Pa’r pera atlr mjreji, lo atlr bcf vlvc’a kbgx bea, atfs’v pera wbnf bc ab atf cfza bcf.
Lbkfnfg, j kffx ijafg, tf gfmflnfv j qtbcf mjii pera jr tf uba boo atf qijcf joafg jaafcvlcu j ojrtlbc rtbk jygbjv jcv gfaegclcu yjmx ab atf mbecags.
Lf rabqqfv kjixlcu, tjcvfv tlr ieuujuf tjcvif ab Ol Xejcuhbcu, jcv qeiifv bea tlr qtbcf ogbw tlr mbja qbmxfa. Ol Xejcuhbcu jirb rabqqfv, ufraeglcu obg atf akb jrrlrajcar klat atfw ab kjix jtfjv jcv wjxf jggjcufwfcar olgra ab jnblv yflcu bnfgktfiwfv jcv yibmxfv ys ojcr jcv gfqbgafgr ktb mjwf ab qlmx atfw eq.
“Hello Mr. Shao, this is the Longyan Public Security Bureau. There are some things we’d like to confirm with you regarding Yang Yinyin’s situation,” came the formal and polite tone of a middle-aged man’s voice. “Do you have time to come to the station tomorrow afternoon at 3? We hope you can actively cooperate with our investigation.”
“…”
Public Security Bureau?
Li Guangzong urged from the side, “Who’s calling? Can’t you talk while walking?”
Shao Si carelessly responded with an ‘okay,’ then quickly hung up the phone. Although his expression remained calm, he felt a surge of doubt within.
If there was any connection between him and Yang Yinyin that warranted police investigation, it could only be the matter of the private detective.
But what should he say?
Should he portray himself as a perverted stalker obsessed with Yang Yinyin?
He waved and smiled to all the fans who came to pick him up until he got into the car. Lowering the corners of his mouth, Shao Si patted Li Guangzong’s shoulder and said, “Son, what’s on my schedule for tomorrow afternoon?”
But without waiting for Li Guangzong’s reply, he continued, “Postpone them.”
“…You have a brand endorsement event tomorrow, I’m afraid you can’t postpone it since it was arranged a while ago,” Li Guangzong replied as he checked his phone memos. “But you can probably tell the company about it, do you have something urgent?”
Shao Si replied, “What if I told you that because I hired a private detective to track Yang Yinyin before, and now the police want to talk to me, what would you think?”
Li Guangzong exclaimed, “You… are you a pervert?”
“Fine,” Shao Si rested his hand on the car window, his expression looking very unpleasant. “Looks like I’ll just have to act as a pervert.”
The next day at 3:00 p.m., police station.
While Shao Si was being questioned inside, Li Guangzong was even more nervous than Shao Si himself.
As an ordinary citizen, he felt like he was back in school as a child being called to the teacher’s office for a scolding, even though the one being scolded wasn’t him.
In any case, he was seriously panicking.
But little did he know, his Shao Si was sitting inside as calm and collected as ever.
In the interrogation room.
One table, three chairs.
Shao Si sat at one side, and opposite him were two police officers.
Sure enough, the questions were just as he expected, all related to the extremely incompetent private detective he had hired before.
“This is a detailed statement of your financial transactions with Huang Kangkang, dated before March 18th and April 20th this year. You paid him approximately 40,000 yuan each time to help you track Yang Yinyin. Is this true?”
Shao Si looked a little stunned, then admitted, “Yes.”
One of the policemen held a pen and was responsible for note-taking, while the older one was responsible for questioning. Perhaps they hadn’t expected Shao Si to answer so firmly, they were somewhat surprised and paused for a moment before continuing with the next question, “Why? Why did you find someone to track her?”
Shao Si didn’t immediately answer this question. He lowered his eyes, seemingly trying hard to hide his emotion, and responded after a long time, “…Because I was secretly in love with her.”
The two policemen were stunned into silence for a while.
“We met each other through the movie The Returning Village Wife…” Shao Si skillfully brought out his rehearsed speech, his voice hiding a hint of pain. “But she doesn’t like me, and I’m usually very busy. I just wanted to see her and know what she’s doing everyday…”
“Stop.” The police officer rubbed his temples, “Okay, we pretty much understand your situation.”
Shao Si went along with what they said and didn’t say anything further as he knew not to overdo it.
In fact, hiring a private detective was quite sensitive since it didn’t include illegal methods like phone tapping or hacking a computer. It was simply surveillance, just following someone around like the paparazzi.
China’s regulations on infringement of privacy are far from perfect. For example, was it illegal for the paparazzi to squat and stalk celebrities to disturb their private lives? No, it wasn’t.
“We can understand your feeling of liking someone, but this method is not really encouraged…” the officer in charge of questioning said. “Thank you very much for your cooperation, and you can rest assured that we will not disclose this to the public.”
“Thank you.” Shao Si slightly closed his eyes, then opened them again.
Two minutes later, Shao Si came out of the interrogation room.
Li Guangzong’s hands were twisted nervously, as he impatiently tapped his foot on the ground. When he saw Shao Si come out, he immediately stood up and asked, “How did it go? Did you explain everything? The police didn’t do anything to you, right… you’re not a suspect right?”
Shao Si took his coat from Li Guangzong and reassured him while adjusting his collar, “Nothing happened, don’t worry so much.”
Li Guangzong waited for him to put on his coat, then handed him a scarf. “How can I not worry? AH?! Why did you hire a private detective? How could you play around like this…
After tying his scarf, Shao Si habitually glanced at himself in the glass door of the corridor, casually reinforcing his persona as a perverted stalker and uttered a poetic line, “Love, by nature, is inherently unreasonable.”
Li Guangzong: “…”
As they were about to exit through the security passage, they met two familiar faces walking towards them.
Chen Yang and Gu Yanzhou.
Four people who were not familiar with each other now faced each other, looking at each other in silence.
Li Guangzong felt a little awkward and rubbed his nose, “Um… are you guys here to cooperate with the investigation too?”
Chen Yang also looked embarrassed, “…Yeah, we’re fulfilling our civic duties.”
There was another moment of silence.
It wasn’t until Li Guangzong secretly nudged Shao Si’s back that Shao Si spoke up, “Hello, Gu shixiong.”
Gu Yanzhou was dressed in a neat and tidy long coat, an indiscernible expression in his eyes as he glanced up and nodded slightly, “Hello.”
At this time, a policewoman approached with a large stack of documents. “Mr. Gu, right? Please come this way.”
Gu Yanzhou gestured for Chen Yang to wait for him here and then followed the policewoman into the interrogation room.
Unexpectedly, she suddenly seemed to think of something and abruptly stopped. She turned back and called out, “Oh right, Mr. Shao, please come along as well.”
When she said this, Shao Si who already had on sunglasses and a mask and was already near the exit froze upon hearing her.
Li Guangzong’s heart began racing again, “Aren’t they done questioning you already?”
Shao Si replied, “…Who knows.”
It was the same interrogation room, with the same two police officers.
But this time, there was an additional Gu Yanzhou sitting beside Shao Si.
The older policeman removed his ID from his chest and placed it on the table, slowly pushing it toward them.
As he pushed his ID, he spoke in a heavy tone, “I apologize for not identifying myself earlier. Allow me to introduce myself properly now. My surname is Wang, I am the leader of Major Crimes Unit 6 of the Criminal Investigation Division. This time there’s actually a humble request, we would like your assistance for our police investigation.”
Officer Wang added, “This matter is very complicated, and also similarly very dangerous. Of course, we will never force you. After listening to what I’m going to say, you have the right to refuse regardless of whatever reasons you might have.”
The author has something to say:
They’re finally teaming up!
Hmm, teaming up for??
Hmm.. maybe they know that our MC helped them solve cases earlier?🤔
Thank you for the chapter 😍 ❤️ ❤️
✨💖✨💖