Read Novel Full Chapter 732: Truth and Lies, a Fog of Mysteries
Chapter 732: Truth and Lies, a Fog of Mysteries
“I don’t understand.”
Xiao He murmured, “Didn’t Elder Qian say he was busy with other things with his friends a while back? How did he get dragged into something like this?”
“And since the police have already taken him away, what’s there left to hide?”
The police were already investigating him, yet he still refused to explain the situation. It couldn’t be that he actually did something shady and was just waiting to be found out and sent to prison, right?
Whether it was deliberately swapping out cultural relics or intentionally damaging them, either would result in criminal detention. If things went south, he’d really be staring at prison bars through iron windows.
Xiao He’s gaze landed on one of the surveillance screenshots, and he guessed hesitantly, “Qian Wenhao majored in archaeology, and his family apparently has seniors in this field too. His eye shouldn’t be bad. And judging by his movements in the surveillance footage, it looks like he was appraising something, right?”
“Could it be that there’s something wrong with Emperor Chen’s authentic script itself?”
Xiao He wasn’t a professional. He couldn’t tell the difference between real and fake, and he had no clue about the procedures. He could only make a rough judgment based on his observations.
Could it be that this authentic script of Emperor Chen’s, which they’d barely managed to borrow from the Yun family, was actually a fake?
“That’s impossible!” Liu Rulan was shocked. “This script went through dual appraisals when it entered the exhibition hall, and the later acceptance process also included another round of checks. With all these steps, none of the on-site personnel found any issues. If it were fake, how could it have fooled everyone?”The people involved in these steps weren’t idiots either. Among them were experienced antique appraisers and highly perceptive calligraphy masters. Later, during the public exhibition, many formidable figures had also come to see it.
With so many people, was it really possible that none of them noticed anything wrong?
How could that be?
Hearing Liu Rulan’s analysis, Xiao He grew even more confused.
In the end, he could only exchange a bewildered look with Liu Rulan.
“The news circulating online right now is still too one-sided. Why don’t you go ask Elder Qian?” Liu Rulan suggested, then shifted her tone. “But to be honest, the burning of the authentic script doesn’t have much to do with us directly.”
For now, compared to the trouble those people were facing, their own problems were far from insignificant. They should be more worried about the “Imperial Enterprise” production team, which was being innocently dragged into this mess.
After all, if it were just the damage of a national-level cultural relic, it might not spread widely. But once it was tied to the entertainment industry, the news shot up like a rocket, radiating across every corner of the internet.
The reach of this spread was truly terrifying.
And as soon as netizens saw the headlines and caught the keywords, all their emotions—sympathy, regret, national sentiment, historical melancholy—came flooding in. They might not even have learned the details or ever seen Emperor Chen’s calligraphy work before they were fuming with rage, charging onto platforms to make the “Imperial Enterprise” production team their primary target.
Now the internet was in chaos, as if their production team had committed the worst crime by setting a fire to burn the authentic script.
Xiao He, as the male lead of “Imperial Enterprise,” hadn’t even enjoyed the new popularity or buzz the drama was supposed to bring him. Instead, he’d taken a hard hit from a negative hot search tied to the show. His name was deliberately hung on the trending list alongside it by those heartless marketing accounts. Talk about a raw deal.
“This happened last week, so why is it only being exposed by the media now? Judging by the online situation, there must be a mastermind behind it pushing things along.”
Almost without needing to think twice, Liu Rulan only paused for a moment before locking onto Yun Ziqi and his agent as the targets. “It should be those two. No wonder there’s been no movement from them until now. The moment you came to record ‘Mars Collision,’ the whole thing suddenly got exposed.”
“It’s definitely them.”
Xiao He gave a firm answer.
“No wonder Brother Shu told me that Yun Ziqi was looking for me when he wrapped up his filming a while back, and later, Screenwriter Qin and a few other producers from the crew all vanished. Thinking about it now, the authentic script must have been destroyed back then.”
So that was why Screenwriter Qin, a die-hard fan of Emperor Chen, had dropped the crew’s work to rush back to Beijing to check on the situation. The few producers who were implicated had also returned to the company.
Liu Rulan frowned. “But if I remember correctly, ‘Imperial Enterprise’ is now a project of Jingyou Entertainment, and they also helped broker the loan of the authentic script. With something this big happening, a lot of Jingyou Entertainment’s top brass will be caught up in it too.”
The interests of “Imperial Enterprise” and Jingyou Entertainment were deeply intertwined. What good would it do Yun Ziqi to spread this scandal now and even force the show to halt production? It couldn’t be that he was trying to pressure the production team into replacing the male lead, could it?
Huh, actually, that might just be possible…
Liu Rulan pulled out her phone and scrolled through the list of Jingyou Entertainment’s top executives. Then it clicked. “Jingyou Entertainment isn’t the Yun family’s one-man show anymore. I heard there’s been intense internal infighting there for a while. Otherwise, Yun Ziqi wouldn’t have almost failed to get the audition for ‘Imperial Enterprise’… So if my guess is right, the executives being affected now are the rivals of his faction.”
This move killed two birds with one stone!
First, seize power internally. Second, swap out the cast.
But the logic behind this incident didn’t add up from the start. There’s no way Yun Ziqi would have deliberately burned Emperor Chen’s authentic script just to achieve this. The loss was far too great.
Unless he was just going along with the situation…
Xiao He fell into thought for a moment, then simply stood up. “How about this, Sister Liu? Buy the tickets! We’re going to Beijing too!”
After all, once they finished recording “Mars Collision,” they were supposed to return to the “Imperial Enterprise” set.
But now, with production halted, Xiao He had nothing to do. He had more time and energy to deal with this matter instead.
He’d jinxed himself earlier, joking about wanting to clock out early. Now that he’d wrapped up this gig, he really had no work left.
Xiao He couldn’t help but let out a bitter chuckle.
But “Imperial Enterprise” was their blood, sweat, and tears. He’d already reported to the set and spent so much effort on the role of Emperor Chen. If they actually replaced him, he’d be spitting blood in fury, and Liu Rulan would be coughing up three liters of it too.
“Alright.”
Liu Rulan had the same idea. “Whether we go back to Shanghai or Hengdian, there’s nothing we can do. We might as well head to Beijing together to check out the situation. That way, we can make some moves, set things up in advance, and secure your role.”
“Yeah. As for the mess online, we’ll leave that to the company to handle for now.”
Xiao He closed his laptop, a hint of coldness creeping into his gaze.
“The main thing is, there are some things I need to see with my own eyes.”
In this whole incident, who was human, and who was a ghost…
-
Beijing.
The senior police officer slammed the table hard, his tone severe. “Qian Wenhao, even now, you still won’t talk?”
In the interrogation chair, Qian Wenhao remained silent, only holding his head with a weary expression, his eyes slightly numb. He didn’t even bother to look up at the people in front of him.
The room sank into a dead silence.
No one knew how long passed before Officer Mi finally walked out of the room in frustration.
“Does the appraisal department have any results yet?”
He asked the others on the investigation team, only to receive a negative answer.
He rubbed his temples, a headache starting to set in.
Just then, another police officer led a group of people toward him.
“Sorry for the interruption.”
The middle-aged female officer at the front was sharp and commanding. She took the initiative to extend her hand to Officer Mi.
“I’m the team leader of the Cultural Relic Crime Special Task Force under the Criminal Investigation Division of the An City Public Security Bureau. My surname is Chen. Our team is currently investigating a major series of cultural relic forgery and smuggling cases. Regarding the case you’re working on, we’d like to exchange some information with you…”