Chapter 98

Chapter 98

When Jian Jing went to the backyard, she was still a little confused.

She hadn't expected Xie Wei to say such things, with no evidence at all, purely based on his own speculation. As long as he adamantly denied it, no one could do anything to him.

Yet he had told her where the evidence was.

Why? Had he suddenly had a crisis of conscience and sincerely repented?

As Jian Jing was thinking this over, she couldn't even convince herself.

Xie Wei's state was too strange. His words and actions were watertight, like a crafty criminal's, yet when he had the absolute advantage, he had voluntarily revealed clues.

This was not the smug toying of someone confident of victory, rather...it contained more complex emotions.

The source seemed to be her.

To call it love was too premature, and to describe it as affection was inadequate. It was like the remote calling of a valley, vague and elusive, its origins unclear.

With extremely complicated feelings, Jian Jing walked into the backyard.

Now that she thought about it, the figure she and Xue Zhe had seen when they were walking in the garden must have been Xie Wei. He was destroying evidence.

The camellia.

The camellia was right there.

She took a deep breath, exhaled, not giving herself any time to hesitate, and strode over quickly.

Relying on her memory, Jian Jing immediately found the place Xie Wei had been standing, but...where was the camellia? There had clearly been a potted camellia grafted here, where had it gone?

"What are you looking for, Miss Jian?" the proprietress asked, carrying a broom.

"Wasn't there a pot of camellia here?" she asked.

The proprietress smiled, "There was, but the day before yesterday at night, Mimi bumped into the flower pot, and all the soil and earth spilled everywhere, washed away by the rain. I repotted the camellia yesterday, it's over there now."

The day before yesterday night? Wasn't that the night of the power outage, when she and Xie Wei had run into the cat returning from the rain together?

Jian Jing's heart skipped a beat, and she asked urgently, "Did you see anything inside the flower pot?"

The proprietress looked completely bewildered. "There was nothing, the roots were washed completely clean."

Jian Jing was stunned.

The evidence...was gone?

The cat had knocked over the pot, and then the heavy rain had come, after a few days had passed, even if the container could be found, it certainly wouldn't be possible to test anything out of it.

What a coincidence?

Could it be he had deliberately tricked her, intentionally laughing at her? No.

Jian Jing silently shook her head. Xie Wei's accidental blurt just now was definitely not made in jest. He had looked completely astonished, seeming not to have expected those words to come out of his mouth at all.

With many things weighing on her mind, she returned to the restaurant.

Xie Wei was waiting for her.

Lost in thought, his brow furrowed with faint sadness. Seeing her return, he smiled at first, about to speak, but his gaze didn't catch what should have been there. He was abruptly stunned.

His look became extremely complex.

He had misunderstood. He thought she had given up.

"I didn't find it," Jian Jing said.

"Is that so?" Xie Wei's tone was very strange, unable to say whether it was relief or disappointment.

Jian Jing pursed her lips. "The cat smashed the flower pot, there was nothing left."

Xie Wei uttered an "ah", meeting her gaze directly. "I didn't lie to you."

"There was no...Tao Tao?" Jian Jing asked.

He became his watertight self again. "Shao Meng's death was beyond my expectations."

The subtext was that there hadn't been time.

Jian Jing understood his implied words and gave a bitter laugh. She seemed to somewhat understand what the system had meant. Things that were unreasonable logically could still happen theoretically, and so they did.

To put it more directly, it was good or bad luck.

Shao Meng wouldn't necessarily have gotten meningitis in the first place, or if he did get it, he might have been discovered quickly and had his life saved through emergency treatment. But he just so happened to contract the illness and die of fright, such a low probability, yet that's what happened to him.

And Xie Wei's luck was especially good.

The way he concealed evidence could be called clumsy, yet a cat and a rain shower came to his aid, destroying the key evidence, leaving no possibility of conviction.

At the same time, Zhang Xi's involvement threatened Tao Tao, making her feel guilty and causing her mental illness to relapse that very night. Without him needing to handle her, her life from then on was thoroughly ruined.

Jian Jing was restless as she opened the system panel again.

During the previous confrontation, the system had declared the mission accomplished, decoding all the content on the panel.

[Mission Name: The Mystery of Stealing Luck for a Second Chance (Completed)]

[Mission Description: The mysterious death of a popular male star, with strange shadows left at the scene. When will the stolen luck be returned? What kind of human tragedy lies behind the stolen life? Please uncover the truth.]

[Mission Reward and Punishment: To be determined according to completion]

"Sigh." Jian Jing heaved a long sigh, still unable to make up her mind.

What was justice? Was the truth necessary to be revealed to the world? What was she pursuing - justice, fairness, or...neither actually?

*

That night after returning to He Ping City, the news of Shao Meng's death spread like wildfire.

With the hype around The Demon Doctor still strong, people were highly concerned and eagerly awaited the police statement. After investigating the scene, the police found no other clues and closed the case as an accident.

[Breaking: Famous Actor Dies of Meningitis, Heaven Envies Genius!]

[Mourning Shao Meng, Recapping His Roles Over the Years]

[You'll Always Be Our Dashing Youth, Rest in Peace]

Whether familiar or not, most celebrities posted eulogies on Weibo, with only Jian Jing keeping silent. Some fans prompted her, but she remained quiet.

Fortunately, people did not pay her too much attention, because right after Shao Meng's death came the news that Tao Tao had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

The internet never forgets. People immediately recalled the scandal from half a year ago. Some criticized that she deserved it, but many women felt it wasn't her fault yet she bore the consequences.

Before they knew it, the topic shifted from "Tao Tao" to the grand themes of "privacy" and "gender," sparking a wave of quarrels.

Soon, no one cared about Tao Tao anymore. Her hype was taken over by other issues, and fans who had stuck with her could no longer stan a psychiatric patient, leaving one by one.

When the tree falls, the monkeys scatter.

The red luck painstakingly stolen seemed like a pipe dream, vanished without a trace.

At the same time, Xie Wei's rise was unstoppable.

Almost simultaneously, an edited video occupied people's homepages.

[What Godly Visuals! Drunk on this Handsome Boy's Eyes]

A UP main compiled Xie Wei's roles together - ancient, republican, modern eras - with catchy background music and lines, condensing his decade-long career into a minutes-long video that impacted viewers explosively.

From an unknown 18-tier actor fallen to the bottom, back to a trending male star at the top - all within three days.

Even for the magical internet, such a meteoric rise was shocking.

Everything Xie Wei had acted in - movies, TV shows, roles - got unearthed by gossiping netizens.

It was as if people suddenly noticed him and expressed incredulity.

"He's the male lead in The Song Dynasty Mystery, his acting is much better than Shao Meng's. How is he not popular?"

"Pure passerby here, but Xie Wei's acting is indeed superior to Shao Meng's."

"I heard Xie Wei offended the company execs, that's why he got blacklisted. Otherwise he'd have made it big long ago."

"Discovered a hidden gem! Such low-key actors are rare now. I'm a fan!"

Xie Wei went viral.

His fanbase exploded with countless new fans and appearance chasers.

Some specifically compiled his best acting moments from different works and juxtaposed them against similar scenes of other actors.

[No Contrast, No Harm. Ultimate Acting Showdown]

With many currently trending actors having poor skills, such a comparison was a car crash - distressing and tragic.

Xie Wei's acting was highly acclaimed.

Suddenly it seemed everyone knew Xie Wei, everyone became his fan.

After ten years of obscurity, he finally embarked on the throne he deserved.

Jian Jing was filled with melancholy, thinking this was the ending.

But that was not the case.

A few days later, Daoist He called her excitedly: "I know where I've seen that tattoo before. The Seven Stars Coffin Sealing Jar also has similar patterns."

Jian Jing was stunned. "What?!"

"Who was the one who borrowed the luck?"