"What?"
The reporters had confused and appalled expressions as they hadn't expected a third party to have been interfering with Sky's affairs.
"What is going on?"
"Wasn't Lu Bohai acting independently?"
"Now he is saying that someone was coercing him?"
Ai slightly shifted in her place, holding her breath.
Was it this moment that Lu Bohai will utter Zhan Yahui's name? Will he expose her?
She felt a sense of trepidation in her heart that she never felt before as if a curtain over a long drawn battle would soon come to a close.
Jun, on the side, was calmer than the unease that Ai was feeling. It didn't matter to him if Lu Bohai exposed Zhan Yahui's name or not. The identity wasn't of that importance as much as the fact that somebody had been pulling the strings behind this nasty game of revenge.
"I see. And who the person might be?" He asked in a placid and unhurried tone.
"I don't know! I-I swear I don't know!" He cried for his life. "That person just used to tell me what I need to do! I-including threatening Sun Bai!"
Sun Bai parted her lips in disbelief.
It was all under orders?
One of the reporters sharply asked, "Isn't it too convenient now? Are you pinning the blame on someone else now that you have nowhere to run?"
"No!" He vigorously shook his head. "I am telling the truth! They promised me that will shower me with loads of cash and a-a promotion where my job would never be on the line..."
"They?"
"I don't know if it's a man or woman."
Jun showed no change in his expressions.
Another reporter pitched in. "Then there must be some form of communication going on between you and that person, right?"
"I-I did-!" Lu Bohai naturally had communicated to the person secretly giving him orders but it dawned upon him that he had no proof of it.
Jun smiled. "Doesn't this make this easier? Show us all your call and messages records?"
He started growing paler and paler because he had no evidence. He quickly took out his phone and desperately swiped up and down on his phone but as expected, he found nothing.
Sweat was trickling down the side of his ear. "I don't h-have any messages or records...They get auto deleted after some time! But I am not tricking anybody this time! Please! You have to believe me!" He fell to his knees, begging Jun to trust him.
Everybody was stunned at his shamelessness. "This is preposterous! You blackmail a woman, expose her on somebody's orders but you don't have anything to prove their involvement?"
"This man is definitely wrapping us around his words. He thinks we are stupid to believe him-"
They immediately quietened down, sensing Jun's cold gaze. "Stupid? Yeah like how you were so quick to point fingers at Sun Bai. Like how you didn't waste any time blaming President Chen Yunru and Shi Huan. Like how you jumped at the chance of tarnishing my company's reputation. Where was your intelligence and the responsibility to find the truth at that time?"
They stiffened in embarrassment and looked away.
Jun looked back at Lu Bohai, expressionless. "I don't need any evidence. I already knew you wouldn't have any. Just like the Summit's bribed judges didn't have anything either."
It took a few moments for people present to grasp the connection but soon, a series of gasps echoed.
"Summit? As in the Author's Summit which occurred on Valentine's Day?"
"There was news covered that the judges were bribed to make Cai Guiying win!"
"But nothing really happened after that..."
"He cannot possibly mean that that person and this culprit are the same?"
"T-this is unbelievable! It's been a while since the Summit took place. Do you mean that Sky has been dealing with an unknown enemy for this long?"
"But one of the judges died mysteriously, right?"
"It cannot be a coincidence!"
"Oh God, don't tell me that this person is also a murderer!?"
The connection of the culprit with Lu Bohai and the Summit triggered a string of furious discussions and theories.
But their momentum broke when the door opened once again and the newbie author Cui Fen was brought in.
"Miss. Cui, who blamed Miss. Shi and President Chen plagiarized her story..." they muttered to themselves.
Jun went straight to the point. "You heard the discussion upto this point?"
Cui Fen clasped her hands together and tremblingly nodded. She was made wait in another meeting room where she was seeing and hearing all the truths unfold.
"Do you have anything to add?"
Cui Fen broke down in tears just like Lu Bohai had. "I-I am innocent too, S-Sir! It's j-just like what this man said. I was also..." her face burned in shame as she continued, "told to accuse President Chen and Miss. Shi...M-My phone was also somehow tampered to store the drafts of a date earlier than when Shi Huan began to write..."
Yunru clenched his fists, feeling a burden lift off his shoulders.
Huan...
"L-later, I was also told to meet Shi Huan s-so that..." she bit her lip hard, "I can hurt myself and make her look like the cause of the accident to f-further tarnish her reputation...B-But she never came to meet me so that plan failed!"
Yunru's eyes watered, seeing Huan finally proved to be innocent. The admiration he held for Jun in his heart grew only stronger and fiercer.
But at the same time, he felt a huge sense of weakness and disappointment for himself.
I...should have been able to protect her...
I couldn't even do that...
With how he was unable to protect the woman he loved, his heart pricked with the feeling that he didn't deserve her.
But suddenly, he felt two fingers pinching his cheek hard. He was left dumbfounded.
"S-sister-in-law, you are pinching my cheeks!" He cutely complained.
Ai said, "Because I could see why you were looking so depressed."
"I-I wasn't depressed..." he quickly lied.
"You don't need to lie, Yunru. And you don't need to feel that you lack anywhere or that you don't deserve Huan. This has nothing to do with your ability to protect her."
She stopped pinching him, staring at him grimly. "This is a battle that has been going on for a long...long time. Jun and I had failed before very miserably...That's why we know that it has nothing to do with ability or inability because we had stood in your place at one point in time."
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