Chapter 31
Shen Wu and Meng Huaizhi had to abandon the piano and run to escape Lin Yanran.
After a while, there was no broadcast announcing Shen Wu’s elimination. Shen Wu no longer hid it and said directly, “I’m the bank scion. I can spend money to suppress scandals…”
He suddenly sighed, paused, and continued, “But because I’m Mr. Lu’s illegitimate son and was kicked out… every time I suppress a scandal, it costs twenty thousand, which is an overdraft from the prize money.”
Meng Huaizhi summarized the key point, “So you have three lives?”
“Mm,” Shen Wu nodded. “Twenty thousand has already been deducted. One more deduction and there will only be ten thousand left. Even if I survive until the end and win the game, I can only get thirty thousand at most…”
Meng Huaizhi understood. No wonder the highly competitive Shen Wu would suddenly reveal his trump card.
“So I will help you survive until the end,” Shen Wu added, “gege.”
This “gege” was said with a smile, and it was unclear whether it was to please him or as a joke.
Meng Huaizhi was silent for a moment, then said, “Then the prize money is yours.”
The two quickly confirmed their goal and formed a solid alliance.
It was not convenient to use the prop piano now, so the two of them could only go and find clues, use the clues to reason, and piece together the secrets of others, then eliminate them.
While they were searching for clues, they ran into Nan Dengwei, who was wandering around.
Nan Dengwei took his own stethoscope and found something in the cabinet.
“Wu-ge, watch me!” he said with a bright smile, and then rushed to the next target without stopping.
Before long, the broadcast sounded.
It was Mr. Lu’s voice, which he had heard on the phone, “Xia Fanxing, your adoptive parents spent their life savings to send you abroad to study, and had high hopes for you. But you had no intention of studying, were vain and competitive, and greedy. A person like you is not qualified to be my heir.”
Then came the system announcement, “Xia Fanxing, eliminated.”
Shen Wu muttered under his breath, “This Mr. Lu and Mr. Shen are quite similar.”
He did not directly criticize Shen Tianheng. The ordinary audience would naturally assume that he was following the script. Only the person involved could understand the hidden meaning in his words.
Coincidentally, Shen Tianheng was taking a break from his busy schedule to watch the live broadcast.
The secretary cautiously reminded him, “President Shen, the meeting is about to start. You can go over now.”
Shen Tianheng went to the meeting with a stomach full of anger.
His anger was so palpable that the employees who passed by him did not dare to greet him and were inexplicably silent.
After Shen Wu finished his complaint, he returned to the main topic, “It was probably Xiao Nan who eliminated Xia Fanxing.”
Meng Huaizhi: “Mm.”
Shen Wu: “Then Xiao Nan might be in danger. He’ll be besieged by Sister Yanran and Liang-ge.”
This time, Meng Huaizhi did not reply. Shen Wu did not mind and focused on finding clues, hoping to eliminate at least one of them before they succeeded.
Nan Dengwei was indeed in a difficult situation.
Lin Yanran could take pictures from a distance, and Nan Dengwei could also easily avoid being clearly captured from the front.
However, if he wanted to eliminate the two of them, he would have to get close. Once he was restrained by the tall and strong Liang Shu, it would be easy for Lin Yanran to take a picture of his full face.
In other words, the two of them were wary of his close-range attack, and he was wary of their cooperation.
If this stalemate continued, it would only give Meng Huaizhi time to play the piano and reap the benefits.
Liang Shu thought for a moment and said to Lin Yanran, “You go and see if you can take a picture of them. We’ll split up. I’ll snatch Xiao Nan’s stethoscope and then go and guard the piano.”
Nan Dengwei, of course, could not stop both of them at the same time.
On the other side, Shen Wu and Meng Huaizhi finally had a breakthrough and found a paternity test report with Lin Yanran’s name on it.
Below it was clearly written: Confirmed no blood relationship.
“Lin Yanran is actually not Mr. Lu’s biological daughter?” Shen Wu said in surprise. “Is this her secret?”
“It’s not enough,” Meng Huaizhi said. “It won’t be that simple. We still need to know why.”
And the owner of the paternity test report was silently approaching them from behind.
Lin Yanran needed to take a picture of the entire face, so she couldn’t sneak attack. She thought for a few seconds and suddenly shouted, “Huai-ge!”
But Meng Huaizhi only turned his head slightly and glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
Shen Wu, on the other hand, turned his head completely.
With a hint of confusion, Lin Yanran quickly took a picture.
Meng Huaizhi reacted quickly, pulled Shen Wu, and ran away.
Lin Yanran was also afraid that they would find out that Liang Shu was not there and would come after her to snatch the camera. She pretended to chase them for a few steps, then suddenly turned around and hurried to develop the photo.
Lin Yanran was out of breath and only dared to stop and catch her breath when she reached her destination.
After calming down, she burst out laughing and showed the photo in her camera to the cameraman, “This time I called Senior Meng, but I still got a picture of Shen Wu…”
On the camera screen, Shen Wu and Meng Huaizhi were standing side by side next to a table. Meng Huaizhi was in profile, while Shen Wu was facing the front, his eyes filled with a hint of confusion, and he was captured perfectly by the camera.
Because this episode was in a retro Republican style, the photos taken by the camera were also in black and white.
The monotonous black and white colors made the two of them look even more slender and tall, with deep and three-dimensional features.
Especially Shen Wu, who was captured from the front. The white shirt tucked into his straight-leg trousers, the coffee-colored leather straps, and the British-style short hair, he was just like a dandy from the last century.
The person next to him was so stingy as to only show his side profile, but they were so well-matched.
When the audience in the live broadcast room saw this kind of photo, they spammed the bullet screen to express their excitement.
[Can the post-production teacher please paste this photo on the public screen!!]
[Director Fang, hurry up and export this photo and post it on Weibo for the family to take a closer look! The promotional poster for the show is right here?!]
[So well-matched, wuwuwu, as expected of my product.]
[A casual photo is a stunning couple photo. Who else can do that??]
After Lin Yanran finished showing it, she handed the camera to the staff member who was developing the photos and got the exact same words, “Young Master Shen from the bank has bought today’s exclusive report…”
She was not surprised and secretly thought, “I knew it.” It was a pity that she couldn’t get a picture of Meng Huaizhi this time either.
Unexpectedly, the stick figure photo that the staff member handed over this time had some changes.
The previous photo was of two identical stick figures. This time, it had become one big and one small.
“Eh?” Lin Yanran stared at the photo, and the follow cameraman’s lens also moved over.
The small stick figure was sitting on the ground, and the bigger stick figure was squatting down, gently stroking its head.
They were just two stick figures without any features, but Lin Yanran could see a sense of gentleness and warmth from them.
“…This is also a clue!” Lin Yanran suddenly realized and murmured, “But what does this mean? If one stick figure is him, then the other…”
On the other side.
In order to escape with Shen Wu, Meng Huaizhi was in a hurry. His outstretched hand failed to accurately grab his arm and instead went through the suspender on his shoulder.
He made the best of a bad situation, and Shen Wu was also very cooperative, following him all the way to a safe place.
Their footsteps stopped.
Shen Wu belatedly felt the hand on his shoulder blade. The back of the suspender was pulled by Meng Huaizhi, and the front was tightly pressed against his chest.
Shen Wu: “…”
Meng Huaizhi: “…”
Without even thinking, the bullet screen at this moment must be unprecedentedly lively.
They might say it’s hot, they want to lick it, and the wild words would be endless.
Meng Huaizhi saw the back of Shen Wu’s ear turn red again.
This time, it was even redder, and the back of his neck was also tinged with a faint pink.
He released his hand, turned to the side without a trace, and blocked his follow cameraman.
Just as he had thought, most of the audience was in his live broadcast room. And many of Shen Wu’s fans, for the sake of the excitement, had also joined in.
Shen Wu’s cameraman was filming from his side and happened to capture a complete red ear.
The number of people in his live broadcast room was not large, but wherever there were people, there were eyes good at finding sugar.
[Baby’s ear is so red, so cute, I want to pinch it.]
[Ahhhhhh, he’s shy!!]
[Wuwu: I treated you as a brother, but you actually…]
[Pulling the suspender is so hot… I want to pull it too…]
Before long, a few screenshots from different angles appeared on the “Wuye Shuhuai” Super Topic, allowing the audience in Meng Huaizhi’s live broadcast room to also enjoy the sugar.
In the live broadcast room, Shen Wu adjusted his suspenders and quickly returned to normal.
Meng Huaizhi was a beat slow before he said, “Sorry.”
It didn’t sound very sincere.
And his gaze was still on Shen Wu’s leather suspenders, slowly sliding down to the two thin leather straps on his waist, his narrow waist.
Shen Wu interrupted, “…Let’s go and find clues.”
Meng Huaizhi: “Mm.” His thoughtful expression seemed to say he wanted to do it again next time.
They had just found Lin Yanran’s paternity test report and probably needed to find one or two more clues to piece together the whole story of Lin Yanran’s secret.
The following process was exceptionally smooth.
“Look at this photo,” Shen Wu was the first to discover something.
Shen Wu opened the grayish-yellow envelope in his hand and first took out a photo.
Compared to the two ambiguous stick figure drawings Lin Yanran had gotten, what Shen Wu had gotten was a real photo.
Similar to the photo of Nan Dengwei in the clinic on the newspaper, the background of this black and white photo was a newspaper office.
Among the crowd of expressionless people busy with their own work, only two girls were taking a break, their heads lowered towards each other, whispering something, their smiles like flowers.
Shen Wu turned the photo over, and there was a line of words written on it:
Yanran and Ruxi, the seventh year of their companionship.
The relationship between the two was, in all likelihood, that of very good close friends.
Besides this photo, there was also a list in the envelope, which clearly recorded Lin Yanran’s debt situation. As a reporter, she was heavily in debt.
“Sister Yanran probably pretended to be Mr. Lu’s daughter to fight for the inheritance because she was short of money,” Shen Wu summarized. “But I don’t know what it has to do with this girl named ‘Ruxi’. We should still be missing a clue.”
This inheritance battle was different from the puzzle-solving task in the abandoned school. Compared to reasoning and guessing, they had to find strong enough evidence to eliminate other competitors.
The two of them were also quite lucky and immediately found a new clue, which was also Lin Yanran’s.
This was also a paternity test.
Surprisingly, the names on this report were also Lin Yanran and Mr. Lu, but the conclusion below was: Confirmed biological.
“…What’s going on?” Shen Wu flipped the test report over and over, completely baffled.
“This should be the clue that connects Lin Yanran and that girl,” Meng Huaizhi thought for a moment and said, “The name on the test report shouldn’t be Lin Yanran.”
Shen Wu trustingly handed the test report to him.
Meng Huaizhi took it, looked around, and locked his eyes on the desk lamp.
The paternity test report with “Lin Yanran” written on it was placed under the desk lamp. The thin paper became translucent under the strong light. Through the three slightly messy handwritten characters, a few thicker strokes could be vaguely seen.
Those few strokes were covered by the three characters “Lin Yanran,” with two layers of ink, and were also the name originally written on this paternity test report.
—Ruxi.
Shen Wu suddenly realized and couldn’t help but sigh, “No wonder it’s ‘Ruxi’. These two characters happen to overlap with the strokes of ‘Yanran’.”
“Now we know Lin Yanran’s secret,” Meng Huaizhi said. “She’s not Mr. Lu’s biological daughter, but for money, she impersonated her friend of seven years to inherit her biological father’s inheritance.”
In the plot setting, Mr. Lu’s surveillance equipment was everywhere.
He learned through the surveillance that someone had exposed Lin Yanran’s secret and then announced it to the whole audience on the broadcast, “Lin Yanran, you betrayed your close friend and impersonated her to fight for my inheritance. You are heartless and full of lies. A person like you is not qualified to be my heir.”
“Lin Yanran, eliminated.”
On the other side, after Lin Yanran got the stick figure clue, she had been looking for Liang Shu.
But Liang Shu had not gone to guard the piano as he had said before, but had been taken somewhere by Nan Dengwei.
After a long while, Lin Yanran finally saw Liang Shu’s shadow and was about to tell him about the stick figure clue.
The ruthless broadcast sound came on, “Lin Yanran, eliminated.”
Lin Yanran: “…”
The staff member dressed as a security guard came over at the first moment to take her away and warned her coldly, “No talking after being eliminated.”
Lin Yanran frantically signaled with her eyes, shaking the stick figure photo in her hand.
Liang Shu: “?”
A moment later, Lin Yanran was forcibly dragged away by the security guard.
The two stick figure photos, like fallen leaves in the wind, fluttered to the ground.
