Pei Shaoze frowned when the staff members left the meeting room.
Cheng Xia’s interpersonal relationships weren’t complicated. He had lived with his parents over the years and hadn’t offended anyone. It wasn’t long after Cheng Xia debuted and there was no enmity with anyone in the circle. Who hated Cheng Xia?
If it was the later period of the original novel then the first suspect must be Lin Qianshu. However, the plot was different. Pei Shaoze had drawn a clear line with Lin Qianshu and Lin Qianshu and Lu Xuan hadn’t broken up. Besides, Lin Qianshu didn’t know about Cheng Xia’s existence.
Who else?
Pei Shaoze quickly searched for people related to Cheng Xia in his mind. Suddenly, a name flashed in his mind. In the beginning of the novel, he injected Cheng Xia with a pheromone release agent and sent Cheng Xia to the boss’ bed. As a result, instead of marking Cheng Xia, the boss kicked him out of Tianxuan.
—Zhao Wenxiu.
Pei Shaoyan saw his older brother’s gloomy face and asked in a low voice, “Brother, do you have any idea of who wants to harm Cheng Xia?”
Pei Shaoze closed his eyes and his voice was hoarse. “It was my negligence. I thought that as long as those with unhealthy minds weren’t by his side, they wouldn’t pose a threat to Cheng Xia. Unexpectedly, the rats in the gutter can still make waves.”
Pei Shaoyan immediately pricked his ears. “So you do know who did it?”
Pei Shaoze nodded. “Yes, Cheng Xia’s first agent called Zhao Wenxiu. Apart from him, I can’t think of anyone else who has such great hatred for Cheng Xia to actually want to destroy his future!”
Moments later, the director took Zhou Peng to the meeting room. Pei Shaoze crossed his arms and stared at the other person coldly. “Cheng Xia has no grievances with you. Why hurt him?”
Zhou Peng obviously wasn’t a serious student at first glance. He had red hair that soared into the sky and two rows of shiny ear studs, resembling the gangsters in society. Still, he fit the image of the gangsters surrounding Lu Fengyang in this scene. Pei Shaoyan found that his previous self seemed to have this style and looked away in embarrassment.
Zhou Peng looked aggrieved. “Didn’t I say that this isn’t my fault?! Your props team gave me the knife. Every time I practiced stabbing the knife in the afternoon, it would retract automatically. There are springs and it can’t hurt people. The director asked me to stab hard so it would look realistic when shooting. I stabbed hard. Who would’ve thought that the knife would become a real knife?”
Pei Shaoze calmly watched him act. Once he was finished, Pei Shaoze asked, “Did the director tell you to cut Cheng Xia’s face?”
“……” Zhou Peng was shocked and panic clearly flashed in his eyes.
Pei Shaoze had been working in the entertainment industry for many years. What type of acting hadn’t he seen? He dealt with celebrities every day and his ability to observe words wasn’t something that could be fooled by a little gangster. Director Liu had previously judged that it was an accidental injury because he didn’t know that Cheng Xia had such an enemy. He couldn’t believe that someone brought a knife into the crew to stab an actor.
However, Pei Shaoze knew who was behind it. He asked directly, “How much did Zhao Wenxiu give you?”
Zhou Peng’s fingers started to tremble. “W-What? I don’t know the person you’re talking about!”
Pei Shaoze’s voice was calm. “You are too naive. You can be sentenced for intentionally hurting someone with a knife. Did Zhao Wenxiu tell you that as long as you cut Cheng Xia’s face, you can shift the blame to the props group? Did you believe this?”
Zhou Peng’s expression gradually became harder to look at.
“The props group repeatedly confirmed that the knife was fine and they all have witnesses. Only you can change the knife secretly. There is your fingerprint on the knife and we took a video of you stabbing Cheng Xia. The police can easily find any records of you receiving a large sum of money. If you don’t give up the mastermind behind the scenes then you will be the sole culprit and this is enough for you to be sent to prison.”
Pei Shaoze’s words were extremely calm but the calmer he was, the more fearful he became. It was as if he was saying a truth that simply couldn’t be changed.
Zhou Peng’s legs softened with fright and his eyes widened. “G-Go to jail?”
He hadn’t expected things to be so serious. He met Pei Shaoze’s cold gaze and felt like prey being stared at by a predator. Zhou Peng immediately shivered and confessed. “I-I’m not the mastermind, I just accepted money to help people do things! Zhao Wenxiu gave me 100,000 yuan to cut an actor’s face. He wanted me to do it and then shift the blame to the props group. I have nothing to do with it! I-I was just greedy for money for a while…”
Pei Shaoze stood up. “Follow me to the police station and explain clearly.”
Zhou Peng gulped and his face was ashen gray.
Pei Shaoze headed to the Rong City police station and handed over the evidence.
In addition to the weapon and the video of the scene, he handed other pieces of evidence to the police including Zhao Wenxiu drugging Cheng Xia’s drink, him carrying the unconscious Cheng Xia to the car, his purchase of the pheromones release agent and falsifying Cheng Xia’s purchase record, etc. In addition, there was Zhou Peng’s testimony that Zhao Wenxiu held a grudge and wanted to retaliate. He bought off an extra who mixed into the crew to destroy Cheng Xia. The truth finally came out.
The police had never handled such an easy case. The person reporting it directly escorted the culprit to the door and submitted a series of evidence. After a thorough investigation, the culprit behind the scene could soon be found.
At 3 a.m., the siren of the police car broke the silence of the night. In this sleep, Zhao Wenxiu heard a knock on the door. He got up irritably as he thought his neighbor had a problem. As a result, he opened the door and saw two police officers standing there seriously.
A text message popped up on his phone from an unfamiliar number. [I left you a way to survive but you touched my bottom line. Don’t worry, I will hire the best lawyer to punish you for your crimes and let you sit in prison for a few years reflecting on it! Pei Shaoze.]
Zhao Wenxiu, “……”
It was now 4:30 a.m in the morning and Pei Shaoze stood in front of the window of his villa without sleeping.
The police had found the chat records between Zhao Wenxiu and Cheng Xia. One of the messages said, [I will make sure you can’t mix in the entertainment industry in the future.]
It just seemed like a threat made out of anger. Unexpectedly, this man was so insidious and cunning. His nature didn’t change. He actually used some means to buy a bastard to take a knife into the crew and ruin Cheng Xia’s face!
In the original novel, Zhao Wenxiu didn’t have many roles. ‘Pei Shaoze’ marked Cheng Xia and raised him as a pet. Cheng Xia wasn’t an actor so Zhao Wenxiu would naturally look after other stars. After that, he never appeared in front of Cheng Xia.
However, Pei Shaoze changed the plot and didn’t mark Cheng Xia. He also drove Zhao Wenxiu out of Tianxuan, leaving behind a hidden danger. It was the ‘butterfly effect’ that affected everything.
Every time he changed the plot, the characters around him could be affected, either for the better or for the worse. The story of this world was completely different from the original novel. Pei Shaoze had been confident before. He thought that since he came from another world and had been operating an entertainment company for many years, he would be able to easily bring Cheng Xia to the top.
Now he found it wasn’t as simple as he thought. In the future, he had to be more careful and cautious. He had to thoroughly investigate the people around Cheng Xia. Every time Cheng Xia entered the filming group, he had to check the details of the staff members to ensure this never happened again…
It started to snow again outside and the entire city was shrouded in heavy snow. Pei Shaoze recalled the thrilling experience and couldn’t calm down. It was just a few centimeters away! If Cheng Xia hadn’t known how to block the knife at that time, his entire face would’ve been instantly cut, leaving a deep, 10 centimeters scar on his face.
Pei Shaoze felt like his heart was stabbed by a knife at the thought of this possibility. It was precisely because he changed the plot without authorization and ignored the possibility of Zhao Wenxiu’s revenge. During the time when the crew was filming the most critical martial arts scene, he even went on a business trip… he was too arrogant. Pei Shaoze couldn’t help blaming himself.
He stayed up all night and asked Uncle Zhong to take him to the hospital early the next morning.
Cheng Xia was already awake and was listening to Zhou Yan informing him about what happened last night. He didn’t expect that President Pei would actually rush back to the 17th High School to investigate the scene in the middle of the night. He also found the mastermind behind the scenes and sent the accomplice to the police station along with the evidence.
It was Zhao Wenxiu.
Cheng Xia had actually vaguely guessed it but he hadn’t been able to believe it. Clearly, it was Zhao Wenxiu who decided to inject the pheromones release agent into his omega artist. It was Zhao Wenxiu who made the mistake and was driven out of Tianxuan by President Pei. However, some people just liked to blame others for their mistakes.
Zhou Yan whispered, “I don’t know what conflicts Zhou Wenxiu had with you but… President Pei discovered the truth and Zhao Wenxiu has been arrested. Cheng Xia, don’t think too much about it. Let this matter pass.”
Even at this time, President Pei took into account Cheng Xia’s reputation and didn’t make public the matter of Cheng Xia’s pheromones getting out of control and him being in the boss’ bed. The police handled it confidentially.
Cheng Xia was in a complicated mood.
Just then, there was a knock on the door. Zhou Yan said, “Come in,” and Pei Shaoze pushed open the door into the room and met Cheng Xia’s clear eyes.
The moment the two people looked at each other, Cheng Xia’s eyes became hot and his nose was sore. How could there be such a good alpha in the world? He was caring, respectful and considerate. When Cheng Xia had an accident, he changed his flight to come back and even found out the truth. He didn’t rest all night and early the next morning, he came to the hospital again to see Cheng Xia…
Cheng Xia gently clenched his fingers under the quilt. If it wasn’t for Zhou Yan’s presence, he really wanted to rush over and hug the alpha in front of him, exclaiming, ‘Thank you President Pei, I’m really lucky to know you.’
Proofreader: Cat
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