Chapter 31
Note: Early chapter release. Thank you, Nix, for the Ko-Fi! Happy new year everyone!
At that moment, Qin Chaomu seemed to lose all rationality, becoming an uncontrollable brute under the sway of his emotions. He violently gripped the girl's throat, pressing her forcefully against the wall so she couldn't struggle.
Aside from the doctor who had administered the medicine, no one knew that the injection given to a pregnant woman was highly likely to cause the child to develop manic-depressive disorder. However, Chen Yanyan, if she knew, would still have accepted it without hesitation. After all, she couldn't lose this child. (Note: Basically, Qin Chaomu's mother got an injection when he was in utero which caused him to exhibit violent tendencies when he grew up.)
The side effects the doctor had warned about were now all too clear.
The girl was frightened beyond belief. Her Prince Charming had suddenly transformed into a malicious demon that threatened her very life. Tears began to flow steadily, dropping incessantly to the ground. Regardless of her struggle, she could not resist the overwhelming strength of a male.
Her mouth was covered by Qin Chaomu with his other hand, denying her even the opportunity to scream for help. As she stared at the horribly distorted face in front of her, she felt a wave of crushing regret for coming to confess her feelings.
Pleading desperately in her mind for someone to save her...
"Qin Chaomu, you bastard!"
Suddenly, these six words filled with hatred exploded in the air, followed by a gust of fist wind that ruthlessly knocked him aside. The next second, the still-snearing Qin Chaomu was floored.
Finally able to breathe, the girl's legs gave out and she leaned against the wall. Recognizing her savior, a flood of tears descended uncontrollably.
"Ling Rong... Thank you!" She hadn't expected her prayers to be answered and for someone like Ling Rong to appear to save her. She regretted having harbored prejudices towards Ling Rong because of Qin Chaomu in the past.
"Are you alright?" Ling Rong helped the girl steady herself, her entire being filled with rage when she had stumbled upon the scene. The anger that welled up from the depths of her heart made her act without hesitation. A voice inside her whispered that she must save this girl.
She had assumed that Qin Chaomu only had trouble getting along with his brother, but she couldn't believe he would stoop so low as to even try to harm a girl like this.
The girl wiped her tears away and managed to choke out an "I'm fine." However, she knew if not for Ling Rong, she might not have been able to return home alive to see her parents.
The anger inside Ling Rong hadn't subsided, urging her to clench her fists tightly.
"You go on ahead, I'll handle things here."
"But you..." The girl was worried about leaving Ling Rong alone with Qin Chaomu, knowing the two had never gotten along.
"It's okay, just leave quickly, and don't worry about me."
After hesitating for a moment, the girl finally ran away. She couldn't let herself become a burden to Ling Rong.
"Did you record everything that just happened?" Ling Rong asked the system in a cold tone.
"Record... recorded." This was the first time the system heard its host speak in such a cold voice, and it couldn't help but feel a bit intimidated.
"Ling! Rong!" Qin Chaomu angrily got up from the ground, his face in pain. His hate for this person, who regularly thwarted his plans, had gotten to the point where it was deep-seated.
Not wanting to waste words with such a lowlife, Ling Rong immediately charged at him without a second thought and knocked him back down to the ground. Unlike the previous times, Ling Rong hit him without holding back, pinning him to the ground and landed punch after punch.
There was no way the spoiled young master could withstand Ling Rong's physical strength.
Every inch of his body screamed with pain. "Who do you think you are!" Qin Chaomu raged. "You'll pay for what you did today!"
By then, not even Qin Zhaoyang would be able to save this youngster!
"Screw you, I'll beat you until even your own mother can't recognize you!" Ling Rong made sure every punch counted and targeted the parts that hurt the most. Just as she said, very soon Qin Chaomu's face was hardly recognizable.
"Host, you must stop now! If you continue, something bad will really happen!" The system truly didn't understand where all of its host's anger came from.
But Ling Rong didn't stop.
"Ah Rong! Stop! If you kill him, you will be punished as well!" Qin Zhaoyang also happened to be passing by, but witnessing this scene had given him a fright and his heart nearly stopped.
He didn't know what had happened just now, but he believed it must have been Qin Chaomu's fault. However, he couldn't let Ling Rong ruin his future because of that half-brother.
"Don't stop me! Aren't you planning to take the test for Class 6? Why do you care about me?” Ling Rong noticed that Qin Zhaoyang hadn't been trying to conceal his real strength lately and seemed to be gradually moving to an advanced class.
"Ah Rong, I'm worried about you!" Qin Zhaoyang didn't care if he would be unintentionally hurt by Ling Rong, he directly held her tightly in his arms from behind.
Afraid of hurting Qin Zhaoyang, Ling Rong truly stopped.
Seeing this, the system wanted to roll its eyes. Humph, the male lead's words were indeed more effective than its own.
Unfortunately, before the two could reminisce, suddenly a police siren sounded. It seemed that the girl had called the police.
"Officer! Catch her, she’s the one who did this to me!" Seeing the police, Qin Chaomu started to play the victim first.
"You are the one who wanted to kill. I was just defending myself." Ling Rong was not afraid at all.
The police had indeed received a report from a girl saying that someone wanted to kill her. Her friend saved her but remained at the scene. But now, they saw that the alleged perpetrator seemed to be in a worse condition?
"Regardless, you all need to come with me!”
No one noticed that, after they left, a man wearing a duck-billed cap and holding a camera easily leaped down from the wall, shook the object in his hand, and laughed triumphantly: "It seems I can make a fortune this time, the Film Queen's son suspected of murder, this is not a small news story."
Soon Chen Yanyan received two phone calls in succession. The first one was from the police station, informing her that her son was suspected of murder and asking her to come over. The second was from a man who claimed to be "Yang Lin". Being involved in the entertainment industry, Chen Yanyan naturally knew who Yang Lin was. He was one of the most disliked people by many celebrities because he was a paparazzo, and a particularly skilled one at that. Many of their carefully hidden secrets would eventually be captured by him, who would then sell the photos to the celebrities at exorbitant prices.
If the celebrities didn't want their private affairs to become public knowledge, they had to buy those photos at a loss.
After repeatedly cursing her useless son and Yang Lin mentally, Chen Yanyan finally said to Yang Lin, "I agree to your conditions, but can you help me with one thing if I add some more money?"
The other party quickly agreed, "As long as there is money, things will be done easily. Just tell me."
"You need to edit the captured materials, then create a hot search, the kind with a high ranking, the first one would be the best. As for the content, I think you should know how to write it."
At this point, Yang Lin directly quoted a price: "1.15 million for the first one for one day, and a flat rate of 5 million for the rest."
Buying a picture and a hot search for 5 million! It was like a robbery! Chen Yanyan was so angry that she almost smashed her phone, but she knew that the money had to be spent.
"No problem! I'll transfer the money to your account later!" Chen Yanyan said through gritted teeth.
"Chen, The Film Queen is indeed straightforward! I, Old Yang, promise to handle this matter well!"
________________________
"Host, that incident just got on the hot search! Almost all of Chen Yanyan's fans are scolding you now, and many passersby, because of the deliberate guidance of the video, are blaming you for everything!"
While everyone was at a stalemate in the police station, the system anxiously informed, even playing the video from Weibo in her mind.
There couldn't have possibly been any surveillance in that secluded corner at the time, but now the appearance of this video would be impossible without manipulation behind the scenes.
The video did not contain any content from the first half, it started directly with Ling Rong beating Qin Chaomu. The video cleverly captured Qin Chaomu's helpless and weak state, but not Ling Rong's face.
The topic #SchoolViolence suddenly came up on the hot search, and Chen Yanyan quickly became a trending topic.
Below the Weibo post, abusive words towards Ling Rong were popping up incessantly. The offensive words would anger anyone who saw them.
Before they even knew the truth, these people had no idea that they were also perpetrators of violence - just that it was cyberbullying, something people always overlooked.
"Host, I have also recorded the entire incident just now, I'm posting it online now!" The system couldn't stand its host being bullied by anyone.
"Wait a minute, there's no hurry on this." Ling Rong was not affected by those comments at all. Compared to her anger just now, she was surprisingly calm now.
By this time, the victim girl's relatives and Chen Yayanyan's agent had also arrived at the police station. Having been linked to Chen Yanyan, reporters sensed news and rushed to the police station, vying for exclusive news. If it weren't for the police blocking the entrance, the station would probably have been filled with reporters.
However, the result of the discussion was that Qin Chaomu temporarily went back to recover, the girl's family went back to wait for the investigation result, and Ling Rong, who had hit someone, had to compensate Qin Chaomu's medical expenses.
Right now, the police had no evidence to suggest that Ling Rong was in the right. The victim and Qin Zhaoyang could not fully act as witnesses. The only existing video pointed all accusations towards Ling Rong. The police had no choice but to make the decision temporarily.
Qin Zhaoyang was both anxious and furious: "Ah Rong, don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you."
"You stay out of this, just go home and wait for the results." Ling Rong rejected Qin Zhaoyang's help. They had just finished the last monthly test of the second year of high school, and Ling Rong knew Qin Zhaoyang was looking forward to making it to the advanced class this time.
The incident grew more and more significant. Ling Rong's past, even her family, were all scrutinized, and the online criticism was intolerable.
As a result of this incident, Ling Rong wasn't even able to go to school anymore. Reporters surrounded her as soon as she left her house.
The reporters, who had never seen Ling Rong's real face before, originally expected a rough and tough character who would fight at the drop of a hat. But upon seeing her face, even the entertainment reporters who had seen many stars were stunned.
After a long while, the crowd remembered their purpose and hurriedly asked, "Is everything on the internet true, or is there more to the story?"
They had expected her to deny it outright. However, the delicate-faced teenager suddenly had tears well up in her eyes. She lowered her head slightly, with her soft black hair sticking to the back of her head, looking very obedient.
It has to be said, being good-looking does provide a natural advantage. Initially, the crowd had come to find bones in the egg, but now they found it hard to ask those more difficult questions.
Ling Rong finally lifted his head, holding back the tears welled up in his eyes. "I don't know why such a video was circulated online," he choked out. "At that moment, I saw a girl in danger — the hands of Qin Chaomu enclosing her neck. I intervened."
The young man sniffed and continued, "Actually, everything said about me online is true. I was indeed a little rascal, always loafing around, never studying. Despite that, I never bullied anyone. I was just an ordinary henchman, but I want to apologize to everyone I may have frightened."
"I won't regret acting that day; I couldn't watch a girl die in front of me."
The sincerity of the young man's words rendered the reporters speechless. Remarkably, everyone they interviewed — be it the girl or Ling Rong’s classmates — all failed to fill the blank.
Knowing how to spin news to attract readers, the reporters quickly hatched an appealing twist.
After finally getting rid of the reporters, Ling Rong flashed a cold smile and instructed the system, "The audio you copied before and this video will come in handy now. Time the release of these materials anonymously based on the time the journalists will release their reports."
"Understood, host!" replied the system.
The speed of news circulation was alarming. By half a day, the interview had already surfaced online, the number of searches soaring. Uninfluenced by any big money, it quickly scaled into the top-five trending list.
The sincerity displayed by the boy in the video made netizens, initially leaning one way, start to falter. They never imagined Ling Rong to look as he did.
"Hey! Are gangsters these days this good-looking? If they're this handsome, I wouldn't mind getting beaten up!" This was a classic case of being smitten by someone’s appearance.
A single video wasn't enough to vindicate Ling Rong, especially considering the massive fan base of Chen Yanyan, which couldn't be defeated by some sympathetic netizens alone.
Soon, another video and audio recording began spreading like wildfire online. No one could trace their origin, but even well-known video-editing experts had to admit that there were no signs of tampering.
For a moment, everyone felt as though their faces had been brutally slapped.
On top of that, news exposing Chen Yanyan's past of insidiously climbing the social ladder by being a mistress was revealed, shattering her gentle and intellectual goddess image.
Chen Yanyan's fans tried to counteract the negative reports, but amidst all the evidence, their efforts seemed foolish.
"Yanyan, it's not good! There’s a reversal on the internet, you better check it out!" said her agent.
Chen Yanyan immediately checked Weibo, certain of her victory, but she couldn't control her emotions after watching everything and angrily threw her phone to the ground.
Unable to suppress her rage, she marched into Qin Chaomu's room and slapped him.
"How could I possibly have given birth to a son like you? If I had known back then, I would have had a miscarriage!"
Caught off guard by the sudden pain, Qin Chaomu felt that those words were like a sharp blade piercing right into his heart.
An overwhelming hatred seized him, and he could no longer control his emotions. He pushed the woman in front of him forcefully.
The words coming out of her mouth were unbearably annoying. If he could just shut her up, he thought, he wouldn't have to listen to her ever again.
Caught off guard, Chen Yanyan had no time to regain her balance, and the sudden force sent her toppling over backward.
Sharp table corners greeted her fall.
The next moment, the servant, attracted by the noise, saw nothing but the vivid red stain and their fainted mistress sprawled out on the floor.
"Is she... dead?!" they gasped.
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Thanks for the translation!
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