"...What?"
Zhou Yichen was on a call with Yunru, who told him about the private investigator named Shao Ming. Nian was able to locate his whereabouts after much digging and searching him through his Underworld route and what awaited Zhou Yichen and Xie Nuying was nothing but a series of back to back shocks.
His body shook and trembled as he learned about how Zhan Yahui had secretly plotted out all the events for making Guiying succeed in every step of the way. There wasn't concrete evidence against her yet but on Xing Bi's request, he had explored all the possibilities of the events and failures happening in Ai's life.
"It was very difficult for even Nian to find him. He disappeared from the radar as soon as he lost contact with Xing Bi and even more so when he learned about her death," Yunru said. "He knew the killer might come after him, so he hid as well as he could."
"Gu-Guiying's editor is behind all this?" Zhou Yichen couldn't contain his shock. "But why? They just worked at the same company! She wasn't even Ai's editor!"
"What Shao Ming said and what I believe to be true too is that it wasn't a personal grudge against Zhou Ai. Not even against Xing Bi. Xing Bi accidentally stumbled across the corrupt judge and soon, she grew dangerously closer to finding Zhan Yahui's identity behind everything. But she died. Then Zhou Ai came to Beijing six months later and began to pry in Xing Bi's accident too."
Xie Nuying spoke as tears fell. "My Ai…she was killed to keep her silence? S-so that she wouldn't find out why Xing Bi d-died?"
"That's what we believe because there is no personal connection between Zhan Yahui and Xing Bi or Zhou Ai. I checked that part too. So the reason why everything that happened was because they came to know about her deceit. Shao Ming didn't get any direct evidence, but based on the investigation he did to connect all the threads and situations, he concluded that it could be only Zhan Yahui and Cai Guiying working together.
It ties up in all ways that Cai Guiying's career soared while Zhou Ai remained unpopular. She broke up with Gu Yating and then news came that he was dating Cai Guiying after that. Considering all this, it could be very well assumed that Zhan Yahui and Cai Guiying worked together. But Cai Guiying ended her life out of guilt, which means that either she really regretted her actions of being part of killing Xing Bi and Zhou Ai or that she genuinely didn't mean for Zhou Ai to die so her death left her in a huge shock and she chose to give up on her life."
Yunru released a troubled sigh. "I feel it's the latter. From what I learned, Cai Guiying hadn't shown her face even once ever since Zhou Ai fell. She never received any calls either from anybody outside or people from Dream High, including Zhan Yahui's. She had holed herself in her house which tells me that your daughter's death left a huge, huge shock and void in her heart. Her last post…clearly expresses a lot of those genuine feelings. It's hard to say how much and how much not she was involved, but I don't feel she knew about the intention behind Xing Bi's accident or intended to kill Zhou Ai."
Zhou Yichen couldn't believe his ears. For his daughter to die as some kind of a collateral damage to protect their own self interests was beyond the rage he could control.
"But don't worry. I will take this forward-"
Suddenly Zhou Yichen hung up on Yunru's call and he stormed out of the house with a deadly aura emanating out of him.
"Where are you going Yichen!?" Xie Nuying exclaimed.
"To confront Zhan Yahui obviously! Where else will I go?"
"Don't be stupid! How can you think of going just like that?" Xie Nuying was beyond stunned. "Do you think Zhan Yahui will admit her actions before you just because you went to confront her? Or do you think she will leave you alive if she knows that you got to know about her? It's reckless!"
"I don't care!"
Xie Nuying froze. Zhou Yichen's reddened eyes filled with tears and the ache in his gaze of his lost daughter shook her heart.
"I…I just want to give justice to my daughter! I don't want anything else! Like hell I will let a person go who first, made our daughter's life miserable and two, went as far as killing her as if making it miserable wasn't enough already!"
There was nothing to be heard or convinced after that for Zhou Yichen no matter how much Xie Nuying tried. The only thing that she could do was stubbornly accompany him to face the villain of their daughter's life.
—
On the other side, Yunru couldn't calm down after hearing the abrupt hang up from Zhou Yichen's side. Considering everything, he was pretty sure that Zhou Yichen could have stormed off to meet his daughter's killer, which was a very dangerous thing to do when she had already hurt and killed so many people. He was about to hurriedly leave to stop Zhou Yichen when he got a call from Nian.
"Sorry Nian but I have no time right now-"
"This is also important, Uncle Yunru," Nian's grave and impending voice from the other side. "I just saw the news that Cai Guiying up on her life."
"Yeah…You knew her?"
There was a beat of silence.
"No. But I had seen her on Shui's twenty-fifth birthday."
"Huh?" Yunru was clearly taken aback but as he focused on his memory, he could remember some bits and pieces. "Yeah I remember now…She was there. I never heard much about her from Shui though. Maybe my sis and brother-in-law would know her better. That's some damn coincidence though…"
"It's not a coincidence when we know who Cai Guiying was connected to, which I came to know just now," Nian's voice was as icy as the Arctic.
"Zhan Yahui?"
There was a long, long silence.
"Yes. And there is a long history…between Zhan Yahui and the Liu family. I don't think that whatever happened with Jun and Mr. Zhou Yichen's daughter is unrelated at all."
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