Chapter 95: Who Exactly Is She?

With Yan Zheng’s earth-shaking roar, the live broadcast was brutally cut off by someone unknown.

Black screen.

The countless viewers glued to their screens saw only the final image: Chen Yu’s face, caught in that half-smiling, half-unsmiling expression.

[What the hell? It’s over? That’s it? I took my pants off for this?]

[What did Team Yan mean? Why won’t he let the zombie guy keep talking? There’s something seriously fishy here, brothers!]

[He’s alerted the snake! Definitely alerted the snake! Team Yan is protecting the zombie guy, and warning that unseen “Mr. Gold” too!]

[I feel like this whole thing is getting more and more absurd. A serial murder case, and in the end it turns into a revenge drama about a gay man driven mad by love, and there’s even some mastermind behind it? This is even more exciting than a TV series!]

[Say what you will, but after today, the zombie guy is a god! No arguments accepted!]

The comments went completely insane. Across the entire network, people were discussing the live broadcast that could only be described as a judgment.

The phone lines at Jiangcheng’s detective squad were nearly blown apart.

And outside the interrogation room at the center of the storm, the atmosphere was so heavy it seemed ready to drip water.

Chen Yu pushed the door open and immediately spotted Lin Bing waiting at the end of the corridor.

This host, who had always been poised before the camera and wore a sweet, effortless smile, now stood with her arms folded against the wall. Her expression was tangled beyond measure.

Shock. Lingering fear. And a trace of something even she herself had not yet realized—

A kind of fascination.

When she saw Chen Yu come out, she straightened at once. Her high heels struck the polished floor with crisp, rapid clicks as she hurried over.

“You—”

Lin Bing opened her mouth. A thousand words crowded her throat, but in the end only one escaped.

She wanted to ask how he had uncovered all those long-buried secrets.

She wanted to ask if he truly was not afraid of retaliation from that “Mr. Gold.”

More than anything, she wanted to ask what on earth kind of monster he was.

Chen Yu looked into those eyes brimming with feeling and the corner of his mouth curled. He smiled with shameless swagger.

He said nothing. He simply reached out and, with the greatest ease, tucked back a loose strand of hair at her temple.

The warm brush of his fingertips intentionally, or perhaps carelessly, grazed her sensitive earlobe.

Lin Bing’s body stiffened instantly. A current shot up from the base of her ear and spread through every limb in an instant, making her pretty face flush and causing her heartbeat to skip a beat.

“Well? The program’s effect wasn’t bad, right?” Chen Yu asked, his tone amused, his breath faintly brushing her cheek.

“Not bad?” Lin Bing forcibly suppressed the stirring in her chest and drew a deep breath, trying to sound more professional. “The ratings and online buzz have already broken every record in the history of variety shows in this country. You’re... a true top star now.”

“Oh? Is that so?” Chen Yu gave a noncommittal smile, as though that earth-shaking fame was nothing more than drifting smoke in his eyes.

His gaze, unabashedly predatory, slid from Lin Bing’s delicate face to the rise of her chest, then to the curves neatly contained by her tailored skirt suit.

“And you?” he asked suddenly.

“Me?” Lin Bing felt a little uneasy under his stare and instinctively lifted her chest.

“Did I leave you dazzled?” Chen Yu leaned closer, his tone so suggestive it might have been wrung with water. “Do you like me... a little more now?”

Boom.

Lin Bing’s mind utterly exploded.

This man!

Just moments ago, in front of tens of millions of viewers, he had torn the fates of several people apart with nothing but words, cold and composed like an emotionless demon god.

And now he looked like a street thug teasing a decent woman!

That extreme contrast gave him a dangerous, fatal allure.

“You’re insane!” she said, cheeks red, and spat at him, though there was a flush of springlike feeling in her eyes that even she herself had not noticed.

“I’ve got things to do. I’m leaving first.”

Seeing that he had teased her enough, Chen Yu did not push any further.

He turned and left Lin Bing with a handsome, unrestrained back view.

Where are you going?” Lin Bing asked without thinking.

“Home.” Chen Yu waved without turning back. “To hold a woman.”

Lin Bing froze where she stood, watching him disappear around the corner of the corridor. She stamped her foot in fury, but her face only burned hotter.

That bastard!

...

At dusk, the setting sun bled like fresh blood.

Orange-red light poured through the hotel’s floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing the entire presidential suite in a warm glow.

Chen Yu rushed back to the hotel.

Right now, all he wanted was to see Li Qing immediately. That foolish woman—he did not know whether she had watched the live broadcast, but she must have been worried out of her mind.

He had even already decided how he would “comfort” her tonight.

Of course, the worst-case scenario he feared was also very likely to have happened.

With Brother Lei dead, his White Moonlight no longer seemed to have any reason to keep staying here with him...

Full of worry and anticipation, he swiped the room open.

“I’m back!”

But what greeted him was dead silence.

The room was empty.

The smile on Chen Yu’s face froze at once.

His eyes swept across the room, and his heart sank hard.

The result he least wanted to see had still come.

Not only was Li Qing gone, but even the traces of her existence had vanished without a trace.

The clothes she had changed out of, the cosmetics she had used, the hair tie she had casually left by the bedside...

Everything had evaporated into thin air.

The whole room was so clean it looked as if no one had ever lived there at all.

An icy chill, bone-deep and piercing, surged up from the soles of Chen Yu’s feet in an instant.

He could not care about anything else. He yanked out his phone, quickly found Yan Zheng’s number, and called immediately.

Beep... beep...

After two rings, the call connected.

“Hello, Chen Yu, what—”

“Where is Li Qing?”

Chen Yu’s voice was full of urgency.

He did not even give Yan Zheng a chance to exchange pleasantries, cutting straight to the accusation.

There was a clear pause on Yan Zheng’s end.

“Li Qing?” he said, frowning slightly, his tone filled with confusion. “How would I know? Hasn’t she always been with you?”

“You don’t know?”

Chen Yu’s anger erupted completely at that moment.

He could no longer remain calm; the string of reason in his mind was violently snapped.

“Yan Zheng! At a time like this, you’re still pretending ignorance with me?”

“Wasn’t Li Qing the undercover you planted beside Brother Lei?!”

“Where is she?! Did she return to the team?! Without even a word of farewell?!”

That roar was nearly heart-rending.

He did not care about discipline, nor about secrecy. He ripped the layer of pretense cleanly open.

He was furious.

Utterly furious.

Were the people from the detective squad all cold-blooded?

Several days of sleeping in the same bed, the end of a mission, and not even a goodbye?

So everything before this had been nothing but an act?

There was a long silence on the other end of the line.

After quite a while, Yan Zheng finally let out a weary, bitter laugh.

“Chen Yu, calm down.”

“Haah...”

A long sigh traveled through the receiver and reached Chen Yu’s ears clearly.

“By the rules, I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“But... now that it’s come to this, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Yan Zheng’s voice suddenly turned grave.

“It’s true that I planted an undercover near Brother Lei.”

“But...”

“That person was not Li Qing.”

Buzz—

Chen Yu’s mind went completely blank, ringing with static.

Not... Li Qing?

Then all his previous guesses...

Yan Zheng’s next words were like a sharp blade, mercilessly driving through his heart.

“And the undercover I sent...”

“Half a month ago, when the mission was compromised...”

“He had already been root-ed out by Brother Lei!”

The last three words were spoken very slowly, very heavily.

Each one landed in Chen Yu’s nerves like a nail, driving in again and again.

Chen Yu’s whole body shuddered violently. The phone slipped from his hand with a sharp crack and fell to the floor.

Li Qing...

Was not Yan Zheng’s undercover?

The real undercover had died long ago?

Then she...

That woman who was sometimes innocent, sometimes seductive in front of him, who would act spoiled with him, worry over him, and sleep in his arms...

That woman whose purity rating was a full one hundred, whose affection for him was off the charts...

She...

Who exactly was she?